Description: Purpose: To screen for non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (identify minor psychiatric disorders). Age: 18+ years Time: 3-8 minutes Administration: Individual and group The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is a self-administered screening device for identifying minor psychiatric disorders in the general population and within community or non-psychiatric clinical settings (such as primary care or general medical out-patients). The GHQ assesses the respondent’s current state and asks if that differs from his or her usual state. It is therefore sensitive to short-term psychiatric disorders but not to the long-standing attributes of the respondent. The GHQ focuses on two major areas: Inability to carry out normal functions The appearance of new and distressing phenomena. The GHQ is available in four different versions, enabling researchers and clinicians to select the version most appropriate to their individual requirements: GHQ-60 – full length 60-item questionnaire GHQ-30 - short form without items relating to physical illness GHQ-28 – scaled version that assesses somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression GHQ-12 - quick, reliable and sensitive short form ideal for research studies. GHQ-28: It is often of more interest to be able to examine a profile of scores rather than a single score, making this version of the GHQ particularly useful. It contains 28 items that, through factor analysis, have been divided into four sub-scales. The GHQ-28 is the most well-known and popular version of the GHQ. For further information on the design of the GHQ-28, please refer to the User’s Guide (1988), p.37. This ‘scaled’ version of the GHQ has been developed on the basis of the results of principal components analysis. The four sub-scales, each containing seven items, are as follows: A – somatic symptoms (items 1-7) B – anxiety/insomnia (items 8-14) C – social dysfunction (items 15-21) D – severe depression (items 22-28) There are no thresholds for individual sub-scales. Individual sub-scales are used for providing individual diagnostic or profile information. For identifying caseness with GHQ-28, the total of the sub-scales is used. An important paper on the GHQ-28 is that which reports the WHO study of mental illness in general health care. Goldberg, D.P. et al (1997). The validity of two versions of the GHQ in the WHO study of mental illness in general health care. Psychological Medicine, 27, 191-197. The GHQ-28 has been advocated by Easton & Turner for use in trauma research and is included in the 1998 GL Assessment ‘Measures in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: A Practitioner’s Guide’ mini-portfolio edited by Stuart Turner and Deborah Lee.

Series: GHQ

Publisher: Granada Learning

Grade: Age18up

Format: FORMS

Keywords: minor psychiatric disorder: