# The validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the biological rhythms interview of assessment in neuropsychiatry in the community: a large Chinese college student population

## TL;DR

This study tested the Chinese version of a tool to assess biological rhythms in young adults, finding it reliable and valid for identifying depressive symptoms.

## Contribution

The study validates the Chinese version of BRIAN for assessing biological rhythms in young adults with depressive symptoms.

## Key findings

- Three factors (activities, eating patterns, sleep) explained 63.9% of the total variance.
- The C-BRIAN showed high internal consistency with a coefficient of 0.94.
- The tool was moderately correlated with PSQI and CES-D, indicating good convergent validity.

## Abstract

To test the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the biological rhythms interview of assessment in neuropsychiatry (C-BRIAN) in a group of young adults with and without depressive symptoms.

Three hundred and seventy-eight university students were recruited as participants. Based on the scores from Center for Epidemiological Survey Depression Scale (CES-D), students were divided into the depressed group and healthy group. Explorative factor analysis was applied to assess the construct validity of the C-BRIAN. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and CES-D were compared with the C-BRIAN to test the convergent validity. The internal consistency of the C-BRIAN was also examined.

Three factors were extracted (activities, eating patterns, and sleep factors) explaining 63.9% of the total variance. The internal consistencies were very good with a coefficient of 0.94 (overall) and 0.89–0.91 for three factors. The domains of activities, eating patterns, and sleep were moderately correlated with PSQI (r=0.579) and CES-D (r=0.559) (ps<0.01).

Our findings suggest that C-BRIAN has good validity and reliability which can be used to assess the biological rhythm in the young adult population with depressive symptoms. C-BRIAN would be a reliable tool to detect depressive symptoms for timely prevention and intervention in the community.