A Screening Instrument for Psychological Distress in Botswana: Validation of the Setswana Version of the 28-Item General Health Questionnaire

Mondy T. Segopolo, Morekwe M. Selemogwe, Ilse E. Plattner, Naledi Ketlogetswe and Anthony Feinstein
Additional contact information
Mondy T. Segopolo: Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Botswana
Morekwe M. Selemogwe: Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Botswana
Ilse E. Plattner: Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Botswana
Naledi Ketlogetswe: Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Botswana
Anthony Feinstein: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Canada, ant.feinstein@utoronto.ca

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2009, vol. 55, issue 2, 149-156

Abstract: Objectives: To develop a Setswana version of the 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) for use in Botswana. Methods: A sample of 126 subjects attending primary healthcare clinics completed the GHQ-28, which contains four subscales of seven questions each for the following domains: somatic concerns, anxiety, social function and depression. All subjects were also interviewed with the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS). Psychiatric casesness was ascertained by CIS scores greater than 20 and an overall severity of symptoms rating (OSR) of ≥ 2 on a 0—4 point scale. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was undertaken to assess which GHQ cut-off score gave the best casesness yield as defined by the combined CIS and OSR assessments. Results: Of the 126 subjects enrolled, 122 completed the study, with 18 (14.5%) meeting criteria for caseness. There were no gender differences with respect to GHQ or CIS scores. The ROC analysis revealed that the GHQ threshold of 7/8 gave the best sensitivity (88%) and specificity (67%) results. The internal consistency of the translated GHQ was maintained with Cronbach α scores ranging from 0.76 to 0.91 for the subscales. Conclusions: The Setswana GHQ-28 represents a valid instrument of screening for psychological distress in a primary healthcare setting in Botswana.

Keywords: General Health Questionnaire; screening; psychological distress; Botswana; primary healthcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764008093448 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:55:y:2009:i:2:p:149-156

DOI: 10.1177/0020764008093448

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().