Screening for post-miscarriage psychiatric morbidity.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) in screening for psychiatric morbidity after miscarriage.


METHODS
A prospective cohort study was carried out involving 222 patients. Six weeks after miscarriage, the GHQ-12 was applied. Psychiatric "case" or "non-case" was diagnosed by the psychiatrist with use of the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-R. The patients were computer randomized into Groups A or B. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed for Group A. The optimal cutoff value of GHQ-12 was determined, and this value was applied to Group B. The test characteristics were assessed.


RESULTS
Twenty-seven patients were found to be psychiatric cases. An ROC with area under curve of 0.93 (95% CI 0.87-0.99, P<.001) was constructed. The best GHQ-12 cutoff score was > or =4 in detecting psychiatric caseness. A sensitivity of 83%, specificity of 90%, positive predictive value of 50%, and negative predictive value of 98% were obtained.


CONCLUSIONS
GHQ-12 is an effective screening tool in detecting psychiatric morbidity after miscarriage.
Lok
Ingrid H
IH
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China. ingridlok@cuhk.edu.hk
Lee
Dominic T S
DT
Yip
Shing-Kai
SK
Shek
Daniel
D
Tam
Wing H
WH
Chung
Tony K H
TK
D000022:Abortion, Spontaneous / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D009017:Morbidity; D011247:Pregnancy; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires