THE VALIDITY OF TWO MALAY VERSIONS OF THE GENERAL HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE (GHQ) IN DETECTING DISTRESSED MEDICAL STUDENTS

Objective: to compare the sensitivity, specificity and reliability between the malay ghq-30 and the malay ghq-12 in detecting distressed medical students. this study determined which version is more sensitive, specific and reliable in detecting distressed medical students. methods: three validated instruments, the malay version ghq-30, the malay version ghq-12 and the malay version beck depression inventory-ii (bdi-ii), were administered to a total of 187 medical students. distress diagnoses were made based on the malay version bdi-ii. roc curve analysis was applied to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the both ghqs by testing against the bdi-ii. reliability analysis (cronbach’s alpha) was applied to test internal consistency of the ghq. the analysis was done using spss version 12. results: 141 (75.4%) medical students participated in this study. the ghq- 30 sensitivity and specificity at cut-off point of 6 was 87.5% and 80.6% respectively with positive predictive value (ppv) of 70% as well as area under roc curve was 0.93. the ghq-12 sensitivity and specificity at cut-off point of 4 was 81.3% and 75.3% respectively with ppv of 62.9% as well as area under roc curve was 0.82 the cronbach’s alpha value of the ghq-30 and ghq-12 was 0.93 and 0.85 respectively. the kappa value for the ghq- 12 and ghq-30 was 0.65 (p < 0.001). conclusion: this study showed the malay ghq-30 had better ability to discriminate between distressed and non-distressed medical students compared to the malay ghq-12. the shorter version was found to be as reliable as the long version ghq-30 in detecting distressed medical students. the optimum threshold score for the ghq-30 and ghq-12 to detect distressed medical students were 6 and 4 respectively. the ghq-12 and ghq-30 showed a good level of agreement in detecting distressed medical students