The factor structure of the GHQ-60 in a community sample

Abstract

SynopsisThe factor structure of the 60-item version of the General Health Questionnaire was explored, using data collected in a community study in a rural area of northern Spain. Six principal components, similar to those previously reported with this instrument, were found to provide a good description of the data structure.The 30-item and 12-item versions of the GHQ were then disembedded from the parent version, and further principal components analyses carried out. Again, the results were similar to previous studies: in each of the three versions analysed here, the two most important components represented a disturbance of mood (‘general dysphoria’)– including aspects of anxiety, depression and irritability– and a disturbance of social performance (‘social function/optimism’).The principal component structure of the GHQ-60 was then utilized to calculate factor scores, and these were compared with PSE ratings using Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. While four of the six factors discriminated well (area under the ROC curve 0–75 or more) between PSE ‘cases’ and ‘non-cases’, only one, depressive thoughts, was a good discriminator between depressed and non-depressed PSE ‘cases’.

Assessing psychological distress in patients with skin diseases: reliability, validity and factor structure of the GHQ‐12

“…With regard to factor analysis, most studies of the factor structure of GHQ-12 have used principal components analysis and have extracted two factors. 6,8,9,16 Therefore, we first performed a principal components analysis deciding a priori to retain two factors, with the aim of making comparisons with previous investigations. As there were reasons to presume a substantial correlation between factors, 7 an orthogonal solution (i.e.…”

“…It is important to examine the factor structure of a questionnaire in different samples, as there is no compelling reason to assume neither that relationships between symptoms are invariant 'laws of nature' , nor that they are exclusively properties of the measuring instrument. 16 Studies may in fact reveal differences in the way symptoms cluster together in different groups of patients. In this regard, this study substantially corroborates previous findings, as there is considerable similarity between our results and those obtained by other researchers who used similar factoring techniques.…”

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the GHQ-12: Can I See that Again?

“…The number of factors that have been identified varies between studies but consistent factor names have been used. The most common factors identified are specific symptom factors for anxiety and depression, factors related to coping, feelings of incompetence, somatic complaints, sleeping difficulties, and social functioning [46,47,[52][53][54][55][56].…”

The Galicia study of mental health of the Elderly I: general description of methodology

“…In the first phase, the screening instrument was the 60-item version of Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (1972). This choice was based on broad experience with it in Spanish community surveys (Muñoz and Crespo, 1978;Vázquez-Barquero et al, 1988), including our own community (Mateos and Rodríguez-López, 1989). The GHQ was supplemented with the Spanish adaptation of the MMSE (Lobo et al, 1979), Beck's Depression Inventory (Beck et al, 1961), and an ad hoc questionnaire that evaluated social support, self-perceived health and help-seeking behaviour.…”