The Scaled General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28)

  • The GHQ is used for the detection of psychiatric distress related to general medical illness (Lykouras et al. 1998).
  • Respondents indicate if their current “state” differs from his or her usual state - thereby assessing change in characteristics and not lifelong personality characteristics.

Number of items: 28

Procedure/Administration: A self-administered questionnaire in which the patients base their responses on their health state over the past two weeks.

How scored: Calculation of total scores (1 point per question)

Interpretability: Scores range from 0 to 28. Higher scores indicate a greater probability of a psychiatric distress. Total scores that exceed 4 out of 28 suggest probable distress (Chung et al. 2006).

Acceptability: Only one study has assessed the construct validity of the GHQ-28 among SCI populations (Rush et al. 2008).

Languages: N/a

Usability: The GHQ-28 is appropriate for individuals who are at least 11 years of age

Time to administer: The scale takes less than 15 minutes to administer and score (appears easy to complete).

Time to score: The scale takes less than 15 minutes to administer and score.

Training required: No special training is required.

Availability: N/a

Equipment required: N/a

Summary:

  • The GHQ-28’s subscales represent dimensions of symptomatology and not distinct diagnoses.
  • As the scales are not independent of each other, the total score has better utility to indicate general psychological disorder than the individual scores do to screen for specific psychological disorders.

Psychometric Summary

Reliability

Validity

Responsiveness

Results

Results

Results

Floor/ceiling

N/a

Construct: Green light

SS: Yellow light

N/a

N/a

Note: TR= Test re-test; IC= Internal Consistency; Inter-O= Inter-observer; Intra-O= Intra-observer; SS= Sensitivity/Specificity; N/a= No information.

Red light= A single study involving SCI subjects which has less than adequate findings of reliability, validity, and/or responsiveness.

Yellow light= A single study involving subjects with SCI which has adequate to excellent findings of reliability, validity, and/or responsiveness.

Green light= At least 2 studies involving subjects with SCI which have adequate to excellent findings of reliability, validity, and/or responsiveness.

References

  • Chung MC, Preveza E, Papandreou K, Prevezas N. Spinal cord injury, posttraumatic stress, and locus of control among the elderly: a comparison with young and middle-aged patients. Psychiatry 2006; 69: 69-80.
  • Goldberg DP, Hillier VF. A Scaled Version of the General Health Questionnaire. Psychol Med 1979; 9: 139-145.
  • Lykouras L, Adrachta D, Kalfakis N, Oulis P, Voulgari A, Christodoulou GN, Papageorgiou C, Stefanis C. GHQ-28 as an aid to detect mental disorders in neurological inpatients 1996; 93: 212-216.
  • Rush JA, First MB, Blacker D. Handbook of Psychiatric Measures. American Psychiatric Pub. 2008.