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      The factor structure of the 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) in young Chinese civil servants

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          Abstract

          Background

          The 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) is a commonly used screening instrument for measuring mental disorders. However, few studies have measured the mental health of Chinese professionals or explored the factor structure of the GHQ-12 through investigations of young Chinese civil servants.

          Method

          This study analyses the factor structure of the GHQ-12 on young Chinese civil servants. Respondents include 1051 participants from six cities in eastern China. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is used to identify the potential factor structure of the GHQ-12. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) models of previous studies are referred to for model fitting.

          Results

          The results indicate the GHQ-12 has very good reliability and validity. All ten CFA models are well fitted with the actual data.

          Conclusion

          All the ten models are feasible and fit the data equally well. The Chinese version of the GHQ-12 is suitable for professional groups and can serve as a screening tool to detect anxiety and psychiatric disorders.

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          Most cited references38

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          The use of the General Health Questionnaire as an indicator of mental health in occupational studies

          MICHAEL BANKS, Chris W Clegg, PAUL R. JACKSON … (1980)
          Article 0 comments Cited 149 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
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            The 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12): translation and validation study of the Iranian version

            Ali Montazeri, Amir Mahmood Harirchi, Mohammad Shariati … (2003)
            Background The objective of this study was to translate and to test the reliability and validity of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) in Iran. Methods Using a standard 'forward-backward' translation procedure, the English language version of the questionnaire was translated into Persian (Iranian language). Then a sample of young people aged 18 to 25 years old completed the questionnaire. In addition, a short questionnaire containing demographic questions and a single measure of global quality of life was administered. To test reliability the internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Validity was performed using convergent validity. Finally, the factor structure of the questionnaire was extracted by performing principal component analysis using oblique factor solution. Results In all 748 young people entered into the study. The mean age of respondents was 21.1 (SD = 2.1) years. Employing the recommended method of scoring (ranging from 0 to 12), the mean GHQ score was 3.7 (SD = 3.5). Reliability analysis showed satisfactory result (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = 0.87). Convergent validity indicated a significant negative correlation between the GHQ-12 and global quality of life scores as expected (r = -0.56, P < 0.0001). The principal component analysis with oblique rotation solution showed that the GHQ-12 was a measure of psychological morbidity with two-factor structure that jointly accounted for 51% of the variance. Conclusion The study findings showed that the Iranian version of the GHQ-12 has a good structural characteristic and is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used for measuring psychological well being in Iran.
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              The reliability of the twelve-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) under realistic assumptions

              Matthew Hankins (2008)
              Background The twelve-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was developed to screen for non-specific psychiatric morbidity. It has been widely validated and found to be reliable. These validation studies have assumed that the GHQ-12 is one-dimensional and free of response bias, but recent evidence suggests that neither of these assumptions may be correct, threatening its utility as a screening instrument. Further uncertainty arises because of the multiplicity of scoring methods of the GHQ-12. This study set out to establish the best fitting model for the GHQ-12 for three scoring methods (Likert, GHQ and C-GHQ) and to calculate the degree of measurement error under these more realistic assumptions. Methods GHQ-12 data were obtained from the Health Survey for England 2004 cohort (n = 3705). Structural equation modelling was used to assess the fit of [1] the one-dimensional model [2] the current 'best fit' three-dimensional model and [3] a one-dimensional model with response bias. Three different scoring methods were assessed for each model. The best fitting model was assessed for reliability, standard error of measurement and discrimination. Results The best fitting model was one-dimensional with response bias on the negatively phrased items, suggesting that previous GHQ-12 factor structures were artifacts of the analysis method. The reliability of this model was over-estimated by Cronbach's Alpha for all scoring methods: 0.90 (Likert method), 0.90 (GHQ method) and 0.75 (C-GHQ). More realistic estimates of reliability were 0.73, 0.87 and 0.53 (C-GHQ), respectively. Discrimination (Delta) also varied according to scoring method: 0.94 (Likert method), 0.63 (GHQ method) and 0.97 (C-GHQ method). Conclusion Conventional psychometric assessments using factor analysis and reliability estimates have obscured substantial measurement error in the GHQ-12 due to response bias on the negative items, which limits its utility as a screening instrument for psychiatric morbidity.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Ying Liang: 8613645188690 , njulucy66@163.com
                Lei Wang: nbwanglei1989@163.com
                Xican Yin: yinxcan@126.com
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Health Qual Life Outcomes
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Health Qual Life Outcomes
                Title: Health and Quality of Life Outcomes
                Publisher: BioMed Central (London )
                ISSN (Electronic): 1477-7525
                Publication date (Electronic): 26 September 2016
                Publication date PMC-release: 26 September 2016
                Publication date Collection: 2016
                Volume: 14
                Electronic Location Identifier: 136
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Social Work and Social Policy, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023 Jiangsu Province People’s Republic of China
                [2 ]College of Sciences, Northeastern University, Shenyang, People’s Republic of China
                Article
                Publisher ID: 539
                DOI: 10.1186/s12955-016-0539-y
                PMC ID: 5037881
                PubMed ID: 27669741
                SO-VID: 56b27074-4fbd-4145-beb8-e38a2524ca99
                Copyright © © The Author(s). 2016
                License:

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                Date received : 29 February 2016
                Date accepted : 13 September 2016
                Categories
                Subject: Research
                Custom metadata
                issue-copyright-statement © The Author(s) 2016

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care
                Keywords: young chinese civil servant,ghq-12,factor structure,scale,quantitative methods
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care
                Keywords: young chinese civil servant, ghq-12, factor structure, scale, quantitative methods

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