Social factors and minor psychiatric disorder in middle-aged men: a validation study and a population survey

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Stansfeld ◽  
J. E. J. Gallacher ◽  
D. S. Sharp ◽  
J. W. G. Yarnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
General Health ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Social Contacts ◽  
Married Men

SYNOPSISA cross-sectional survey of minor psychiatric disorder is reported in a representative community sample of 2204 men between the ages of 45 years and 64 years living in Caerphilly, South Wales. Minor psychiatric disorder was measured by the 30-item General Health Questionnaire and validated by the Clinical Interview Schedule in a consecutive sample of 97 men, weighted to provide one-third cases, two-thirds non-cases. A case threshold of 4/5 on the General Health Questionnaire was chosen on the basis of ‘ROC’ analysis. An overall estimated ‘true’ prevalence rate for minor psychiatric disorder of 22·0% was found, with 22·3% of men scoring 5 or more on the General Health Questionnaire. Rates of minor psychiatric disorder were higher in widowed and divorced men than in married men but were also, unexpectedly, lower in single as opposed to married men. There was no social-class gradient in minor psychiatric morbidity but a lower rate in Social Class III NM may be largely explained by lower unemployment rates. There were markedly higher rates of minor psychiatric morbidity in unemployed men and those who retired ill. Men with no available social contacts had higher rates of morbidity than men with some or high social contacts.

Social class and minor psychiatric disorder in British Civil Servants: a validated screening survey using the General Health Questionnaire

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 739-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Stansfeld ◽  
M. G. Marmot
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
General Health ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Clear Cut

SynopsisMajor psychiatric disorder is more common in people of lower rather than higher socioeconomic status. This is less clear for the commoner, so-called minor psychiatric disorders, but these are more affected by tendency to report symptoms. To examine this the distribution of minor psychiatric disorder by employment grade measured by the 30-item General Health Questionnaire is reported from the first cross-sectional phase of the Whitehall II Study of 10314 London-based civil servants, men and women between 35 and 55 years. Validation of the GHQ in a random subsample stratified by grade and sex (N = 201) suggested that people in lower employment grades tend to under-report minor psychiatric disorder on the GHQ relative to those in higher employment grades. The prevalence of minor psychiatric disorder corrected by the coefficients from the validity study was greater in the lower employment grades than the higher employment grades particularly for men. This was echoed in grade differences in well-being measured by the Affect Balance Scale, and in symptoms and recurrent health problems. Overall, for women there were few clear-cut differences in minor psychiatric disorder by employment grade. The lack of social class gradient in women suggests that further exploration should examine women's role at work and their personal lives for the aetiology of minor psychiatric disorder.

The Mental Health of Elderly Couples II. Concordance for Psychiatric Morbidity in Spouses

1987 ◽  
Vol 150 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Eagles ◽  
L. G. Walker ◽  
G. W. Blackwood ◽  
J. A. G. Beattie ◽  
D. B. Restall
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
General Health ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
The Self ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Self Assessment

A community sample of elderly married couples completed the 60-item General Health Questionnaire and the Leeds General Scales for the Self-Assessment of Depression and Anxiety. Significant concordance was demonstrated between the spouses' scores on these scales. Concordance was higher for depression than for anxiety. There was little to support previous findings that wives are more likely than husbands to be concordant with an ill spouse. The spouse concordance rates for psychiatric morbidity were similar to those found in studies of younger married couples.

Unemployment and risk of minor psychiatric disorder in young people: cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. H. Banks ◽  
P. R. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
General Health ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Longitudinal Analyses ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Age Cohorts

SynopsisTwo age cohorts of young people were interviewed at times up to 2½ years after leaving school to investigate the association between unemployment and risk of minor psychiatric morbidity, as assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), taking into account differences due to sex, ethnic group and educational qualifications. Cross-sectional data are presented on 2767 interviews. The psychometric properties of the GHQ justified the use of a total score. Although females had a higher risk of psychiatric morbidity, the strongest association was between unemployment and GHQ. The association between unemployment and GHQ scores was shown to be present after controlling for sex, ethnic group and educational qualification differences. Longitudinal analyses showed that the experience of unemployment was more likely to create increased symptoms, rather than the reverse.

Psychiatric Morbidity among Dunedin Chinese Women

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Cheung ◽  
George Spears
Keyword(s):  
General Health ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Sociodemographic Factors ◽  
Postal Survey ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Family Reunion ◽  
Case Identification

A community postal survey of minor psychiatric morbidity among Chinese women living in Dunedin was conducted. The 28-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was used as the case identification instrument. The overall rate of psychiatric morbidity of Dunedin Chinese women did not differ from their European counterparts. The sociodemographic factors found to be associated with minor psychiatric morbidity included having no children, and being either very well or very poorly educated. Among (foreign born) migrants, those who were born in China, whose reason for migration was “follow the lead of their family” or “family reunion”, had resided in NewZealand for ten years or more and spoke English infrequently tended to have higher psychiatric morbidity.

Validation of the 30-item General Health Questionnaire in postpartum women

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. N. Nott ◽  
S. Cutts
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
General Health ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Slight Modification ◽  
Screening Instrument ◽  
Postpartum Women ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Interview ◽  
General Practices ◽  
At Home

SynopsisTwo hundred consecutive women from five Southampton general practices who were between 8 and 14 weeks postpartum were visited at home. Each subject was given the 30-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) and a standardized psychiatric interview. Thirty-seven (18%) were identified as ‘cases’ by the psychiatric interview. Eighty-nine (44.5%) scored highly on the GHQ. Analysis of the results indicates that slight modification of the content and a raised cut-off point of the GHQ-30 make it a useful screening instrument for postpartum psychiatric disorder.

Emotional Disturbance in Hearing Clinic Patients

1980 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burt Singerman ◽  
Erwin Riedner ◽  
Marshal Folstein
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Emotional Disturbance ◽  
General Health ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Vestibular Symptoms ◽  
Hearing Evaluation

SummaryA group of outpatients scheduled for hearing evaluation were screened for psychiatric morbidity using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30). There was an association between objective hearing loss and elevated GHQ-30 score. An association was also found between the presence of tinnitus and vestibular symptoms and elevated GHQ-30 score.

Long-Term Stability of the Rational Behavior Inventory and the General Health Questionnaire

1987 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 637-638
Author(s):  
Robbert Sanderman ◽  
Johan Ormel
Keyword(s):  
General Health ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Rational Behavior ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Term Stability ◽  
Long Term Stability

For scores of a community sample of 230 adults (120 men, 110 women) rs over 17 mo. were .40 and .78 for the General Health Questionnaire and Rational Behavior Inventory, respectively.

Validation of the General Health Questionnaire in a young community sample

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Banks
Keyword(s):  
General Health ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Continuous Variable ◽  
General Factor ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Relative Independence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Misclassification Rates ◽  
State Examination

SYNOPSISValidity coefficients of the 30-item, 28-item and 12-item versions of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) were determined by comparison with the Present State Examination (PSE) in a sample of 200 17-year-olds. The PSE classified 7 people (3·5%) as cases, although only 47% were identified as free of symptoms. Misclassification rates, sensitivity and specificity values are presented for different cutting scores for the three versions of the GHQ. The GHQ-28 had superior values, especially with a cutting score of 5/6; the GHQ-12 with a 2/3 cutting score also had acceptable values. All versions of the GHQ correlated highly with the PSE Index of Definition and total scores, providing support for the treatment of GHQ scores as a continuous variable in this kind of population. Correlations between sub-scales of the GHQ-28 give further evidence for a general factor and the relative independence of the social dysfunction sub-scale.

Psychiatric morbidity among Punjabi medical patients in England measured by General Health Questionnaire

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 711-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
I-B. Krause ◽  
R. M. Rosser ◽  
M. L. Khiani ◽  
N. S. Lotay
Keyword(s):  
General Health ◽  
Depressive Symptomatology ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Medical Patients ◽  
Health Centres

SynopsisThe 28-item GHQ was administered to 282 Punjabi and white British patients visiting two Health Centres in Bedford. We discovered that ethnicity is not significantly correlated with GHQ ‘caseness’, but that differences exist in somatic and depressive symptomatology. The discussion relates these findings to debates about the psychiatric morbidity of Asian immigrants and somatization.

Severity of Psychiatric Disorder and the 30-Item General Health Questionnaire

1979 ◽  
Vol 134 (6) ◽  
pp. 609-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Finlay-Jones ◽  
Elaine Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
General Health ◽  
General Health Questionnaire ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Threshold Score ◽  
Adverse Life Event ◽  
Chronic Disorders ◽  
State Examination

SummaryThe 30-item General Health Questionnaire misclassified 26 per cent of respondents in two samples of women who were interviewed by a psychiatrist using the Present State Examination. False negatives were likely to be women with chronic disorders, particularly anxiety states. False positives were likely to be distressed by severe physical illness, a recent adverse life event, or loneliness. Applying a higher threshold score to their GHQ, responses would help to separate those with a diagnosable psychiatric disorder from those in states of distress.

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