Validity of the GHQ-30 in a Nigerian medical outpatient clinic.
Basic mental health vital statistics are scarce in developing countries. Scarcer still are validated psychological survey instruments which can be used in these settings. A method of dealing with such scarcity is through the validation of instruments developed elsewhere. One such instrument is Goldberg GHQ-30. The 30-item General Health Questionnaire was used by the authors as a screening instrument for emotional disorder in a general medical outpatient clinic. The GHQ-30 misclassified 32.3% of the respondents, a majority of whom were false-positives. There is a tendency for the misclassified respondents to suffer from chronic physical ailments, and to be older. The GHQ-30 appears not to have high specificity (65%) and sensitivity (73%). The predictive value (53.3%) of a positive finding by this screening instrument in this population is also low. Informed consent was obtained from participating subjects.
Oduwole
O O
OO
Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of Illorin, Nigeria.
Ogunyemi
A O
AO
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D009549:Nigeria; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011594:Psychometrics