Abstract:Objective To test the reliability and construct validity of Rasch-Derived Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-R) in community elderly population so as to provide a new kind of simple tool for them. Methods Stratified random sampling method was adopted. The CES-D-R was used for questionnaire survey in 500 community elderly people and all the data were analyzed by SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 17.0. Results Entries correlation analysis results showed that all the entries-total scores were significantly related, the CES-D-R and CES-D were significantly related, the item content validity indexes (I-CVI) were 0.830-1.000, the scale content validity indexes (S-CVI/UA) was 0.860 and S-CVI/Ave was 0.970. Four common factors from exploratory factor analysis explained 78.913% of the total variance and the communalities of the items were 0.701-0.834. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the CMIN/DF < 3; GFI, TLI and CFI > 0.90; RMSEA < 0.08; and PGFI > 0.50. Besides CMIN and AGFI, other standards achieved adaption. The Cronbach α coefficient was 0.798; Cronbach α coefficient of four dimensions were 0.725, 0.780, 0.882 and 0.755 respectively; split-half reliability coefficient was 0.769, ICC was 0.798. Conclusions CES-D-R is a reliable and valid instrument which could be used for evaluation of community elderly depression.