Assessment of the factor structure and reliability of the Portuguese version of the General Health Questionnaire-28 among adults

Abstract

Background: The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ, Goldberg & Hillier, , Psychological Medicine, 9, 139–145) is a self-administered questionnaire used to measure non-psychotic psychiatric disorders. There is a study using a Portuguese version of this questionnaire (n = 60) including a group of inpatients with infectious diseases (Ribeiro & Antunes, , Revista Portuguesa de Psicossomática, 5(1), 37–45), but there are no larger studies in non-clinical Portuguese population.

Aims: The primary aim of the study was to confirm the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the GHQ-28 among 171 Portuguese adults in non-clinical settings.

Methods: The Portuguese version of the GHQ-28 was administered to 171 adult subjects of Portuguese general population.

Results: The Portuguese version of the GHQ-28 has an internally consistent measure Cronbach's α 0.922 for the GHQ-28 total scale. For the subscale somatic symptoms Cronbach's α was 0.825; for the subscale Anxiety/ Insomnia, Cronbach's α was 0.873; for the subscale Social dysfunction Cronbach's α was 0.873 and for the subscale Severe Depression was 0.838. Four factors were extracted using factor analysis: somatic symptoms (items 1–7); anxiety/insomnia (items 8–14); psychosocial dysfunction (items 15–21); and severe depression (items 22–28).

Conclusions: The findings suggest that the GHQ-28 is a suitable screening instrument for adult Portuguese population in non-clinical settings.

Keywords:

• General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28)
• reliability instrumental study
• Portuguese version

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.