Psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Mental Health Inventory-5 (MHI-5)

The mental health inventory-5 (mhi-5) is a valid and reliable brief instrument for assessing mental health internationally. this study aimed to investigate the validity of the persian version of the mhi-5 among the iranian adult population. data were collected electronically from december 2020 to june 2020 using social networks (google form). the questionnaire gathered information on demographics, the generalized anxiety disorder-7 (gad-7), patient health questionnaire-9 (phq-9), mental health inventory-28 (mhi-28), and mental health inventory-5 (mhi-5). content validity was assessed, and internal consistency was evaluated using cronbach's alpha. descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted on 1208 participants with a mean age of 32.80±12.37 years, of which 29.3% were male. the internal consistency for the persian mhi-5 scale was 0.85 and cronbach's alpha 0.78. item-total correlations ranged from 0.49 to 0.52. the mean total score was 15.25±2.50. negative statistically significant correlations were found between the persian mhi-5 and anxiety/depression scores (p<0.05), demonstrating valid criterion validity. the findings support the reliability and validity of the persian mhi-5 for screening mental illness among the general iranian population. a short inventory such as the mhi-5 can effectively aid healthcare systems in mental health screening.