[Ranking assessment of the General Health Questionnaire using Latent Rank Theory]

The latent rank structure of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was examined and a methodology for "ranking assessment" for use in clinical screening was suggested. Clinical screening is conducted by using dichotomous methods, which is problematic. Recent research has introduced the concept of ranking assessment, which is conducted by dividing clients into ordinal groups according to the Latent Rank Theory (LRT). Participants (N = 949, including 80 neurotic patients) completed the GHQ. They were then divided into four ordinal groups according to LRT. The usual cut-off point of the GHQ (16/17 points) distinguished the third and fourth rank group as the clinical group and the first-rank group as the healthy group. However, the second rank group was classified as neither a healthy or clinical group. These results indicate that the LRT has the potential to facilitate practical and flexible clinical screening.