title: Chronic psychiatric complaints and the General Health Questionnaire.
abstract: The sensitivity of the GHQ and a revised scoring procedure (CGHQ) for chronic psychiatric complaints was investigated on 175 out-patients. The mean level of severity of symptoms of the groups with and without chronic complaints was not significantly different. However, patients with chronic complaints showed a significantly lower mean GHQ score than patients without chronic complaints. The mean CGHQ scores of the two groups did not differ, suggesting that the CGHQ is a better indicator of the severity of the chronic psychiatric state than the GHQ. The revised scoring procedure resulted in a decrease in the number of false negatives. The strongest reduction in false negatives, however, was induced by a combination of the original and the revised scoring procedures. This reduction was achieved at the expense of only a small increase in the number of false positives. Altogether, the revised scoring procedure proved to be only marginally better.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Psychiatry, State University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Koeter
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: van den Brink
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ormel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D010556:Personality Tests; D011594:Psychometrics