The Global Mental Health Assessment Tool-validation in Hindi: A validity and feasibility study

A computer-assisted interview, the Global Mental Health Assessment Tool-validation (GMHAT/PC) has been developed to assist general practitioners and other health professionals to make a quick, convenient, yet reasonably comprehensive standardized mental health assessment. GMHAT/PC has been translated into various languages including Hindi. This is the first study conducted in India, using the Hindi version GMHAT/PC of the series of studies assessing its validity in different cultures.

The study aims to assess the feasibility of using a computer assisted diagnostic interview by health professionals and to examine the level of agreement between the Hindi version GMHAT/PC diagnosis and psychiatrists' ICD-10 based clinical diagnosis.

Cross-sectional validation study.

Psychiatric clinic of a General Hospital and an out patient (Neurology) clinic in the Teaching General Hospital in Jaipur, India.

All consecutive patients attending the psychiatric out patient clinic were interviewed using GMHAT/PC and psychiatrists made a diagnosis applying ICD-10 criteria for a period of six weeks. A small sample of subjects was interviewed in a similar way in a Neurology clinic for four weeks.

The mean duration of interview was under 17 minutes. Most patients were pleased that they were asked about every aspect of their mental health. The agreement between psychologists' GMHAT/PC interview diagnoses and psychiatrists' clinical diagnoses was excellent (Kappa 0.96, sensitivity 1.00, and specificity 0.94).

GMHAT/PC Hindi version detected mental disorders accurately and it was feasible to use GMHAT/PC in Indian settings.