Chronicity and the General Health Questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Psychological assessment
• Psychometrics
• Epidemiology

Background:

• The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is a widely used screening tool for psychological distress.
• Conventional scoring of the GHQ may misinterpret responses related to chronic illness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and validate a revised scoring method for the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ).
• To improve the accuracy and stability of GHQ in identifying psychological distress and chronic illness.

Main Methods:

• Revising the scoring of a specific item in the GHQ related to pathology.
• Comparing the revised scoring with conventional scoring using measures of neuroticism and caseness.
• Assessing the stability of the revised scoring through repeated measurements.

Main Results:

• The revised scoring, treating 'no more than usual' responses as indicators of chronic illness, showed better prediction of caseness.
• The revised scoring demonstrated a stronger association with trait neuroticism.
• The revised scoring proved more stable in repeated measurements compared to the conventional method.

Conclusions:

• The proposed revised scoring for the General Health Questionnaire offers improved accuracy and stability.
• This revised method is recommended for research and epidemiological studies for better identification of psychological distress and chronic illness.