Introduction:

depressive symptoms constitute one of the most frequent problems in the adult population, presenting itself in recent years as an important global public health problem. Empirical evidence suggests depressive symptoms are related to other emotional and physical disorders, being necessary to identify probable cases by means of screening instruments for an early intervention.

Objective:

the study was aimed at validating the Patient Health Questionnarie-2 in the Peruvian adult population.

Methods:

the research design was instrumental, with the participation of 283 Peruvian adults living in Lima on April 2021, chosen by snowball sampling and inclusion criteria. Internal consistency was evaluated and by means of structural equation modeling a model was made for evidence based on relation to other variables.

Results:

the assessment of internal consistency using the alpha coefficient (α = 0.75) and the omega coefficient (ω = 0.76) were acceptable. Also, scores derived from the Patient Health Questionnarie-2 converged with suicidal ideation (r = 0.61; p = 0.001) and anxiety (r = 0.72; p = 0.001), both with strong effect sizes.

Conclusions:

the Patient Health Questionnarie-2 is a reliable screening instrument for the assessment of depressive symptoms, presenting sources of evidence of validity in relation to other variables and internal consistency. Its use is recommended in the Peruvian adult population for case detection as an analysis prior to the application of other instruments.

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