Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T21:15:54.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Validation of the 30-item General Health Questionnaire in early pregnancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Deborah J. Sharp
Deborah J. Sharp*
Affiliation:
Department of General Practice, UMDS – St Thomas Campus, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Deborah J. Sharp, Department of General Practice, UMDS - St Thomas Campus, 80 Kennington Road, London SE11.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

One-hundred-and-seventy-nine women attending their first antenatal clinic at two general practices in South London were asked to complete the 30-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) as part of a larger prospective longitudinal study into childbirth-related affective disorders. The women were later interviewed at home and a standardized psychiatric interview administered. Relative operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine the optimum cut-off point on the GHQ-30. Thirty-five per cent of the women were high scorers on the GHQ-30 (≥6) and 29% were found to be ‘cases’ at interview (CIS Overall Severity Rating ≥2).

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , May 1988 , pp. 503 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ancill, R., Hilton, S., Carr, A., Tooley, M. & McKenzie, A. (1986). Screening for antenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms in general practice using a microcomputer delivered questionnaire. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners 36, 276–279.Google ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, S., Decalmer, P. & Haran, D. (1982). Community screening for Mental Illness. A validity study of the General Health Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychiatry 140, 174–180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bridges, K. W. & Goldberg, D. P. (1986). The validation of the GHQ-28 and the use of the MMSE in neurological inpatients. British Journal of Psychiatry 148, 548–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. & Harris, T. (1978). Social Origins of Depression. Tavistock: London.Google Scholar
Cox, J. L. (1979). Psychiatric morbidity and pregnancy: a controlled study of 263 semi-rural Ugandan women. British Journal of Psychiatry 134, 401–405.Google Scholar
Dale, A., Gilbert, G. N. & Arber, S. (1985). Integrating women into class theory. Sociology 19, 384–409.Google Scholar
Erdreich, L. S. & Lee, E. T. (1981). Use of Relative Operating Characteristics analysis in epidemiology. American Journal of Epidemiology 114 (5), 649–662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, D. P. (1972). The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire. Maudsley Monographs No. 21. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1978). Manual of the General Health Questionnaire. NFER Publishing Company: Windsor.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. & Williams, P. (1987). A Users' Guide to the General Health Questionnaire. NFER: Windsor (in the press).Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P., Cooper, B., Eastwood, M. R., Kedward, H. B. & Shepherd, M. (1970). A standardised psychiatric interview for use in community surveys. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine 24, 18–23.Google ScholarPubMed
Hobbs, P., Ballinger, C. B. & Smith, A. H. W. (1983). Factor analysis and validation of the General Health Questionnaire in women. A general practice survey. British Journal of Psychiatry 142, 257–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, M. (1986). Eating disorders in general practice. British Medical Journal 293, 1412–1414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kumar, R. & Robson, K. (1984). A prospective study of emotional disorders in childbearing women. British Journal of Psychiatry 144, 35–47.Google Scholar
Mann, A. H., Wakeling, A., Wood, K., Monck, E., Dobbs, R. & Szmuckler, G. (1983). Screening for abnormal eating attitudes and psychiatric morbidity in an unselected population of 15-year-old schoolgirls. Psychological Medicine 13, 573–580.Google Scholar
Mari, J. J. & Williams, P. (1985). A comparison of the validity of two psychiatric screening questionnaires (GHQ-12 & SRQ-20) in Brazil, using Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) Analysis. Psychological Medicine 15, 651–659.Google Scholar
Mari, J. J. & Williams, P. (1986). Misclassification by psychiatric screening questionnaires. Journal of Chronic Diseases 39, 371–378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marsh, G. N. (1986). The primary health care team in obstetrics. In Modern Obstetrics in General Practice (ed. Marsh, G. N.), pp. 172–184. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Metz, C. E., Wang, P. L. & Heinman, H. B. (1984). ROCFIT. Department of Radiology and the Franklin Mclean Memorial Research Institute. University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Nott, P. N. & Cutts, S. (1982). Validation of the 30-item General Health Questionnaire in post partum women. Psychological Medicine 12, 409–413.Google Scholar
Playfair, H. R. & Gowers, J. I. (1981). Depression following childbirth - a search for predictive signs. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners 31, 201–208.Google ScholarPubMed
Sharp, D. J. (1986). Antenatal Care. Lancet i, 1494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, J. P., Elliott, S. A., Rugg, A. J. & Brough, D. I. (1984). Psychiatric disorder in pregnancy and the first postnatal year. British Journal of Psychiatry 144, 453–462.Google Scholar
Wolkind, S. & Zajicek, E. (1981). Pregnancy - A Psychological and Social Study. Academic Press: London and New York.Google Scholar
Zander, L. I., Watson, M., Taylor, R. W. & Morrell, D. C. (1978). Integration of general practitioner and specialist care. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners 28, 455–458.Google Scholar
Zintl-Wiegand, A., Schmid-Manshart, C., Leisner, R. & Cooper, B. (1978). Psychische Erkrankungen in Mannheimer Allgemeinpraxen. In Psychialrische Epidemiologie (ed. Häfner, H.), pp. 111–133. Monographic aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Psychiatne. Psychiatry Series Berlin, 17. Springer: Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar