The 28-items of the scaled version of the GENERAL HEALTH

QUESTIONNAIRE (Goldberg and Hillier 1979)

HAVE YOU RECENTLY:
1. Been feeling perfectly well and in good health?
2. Been feeling in need of a good tonic?
3. Been feeling run down and out of sorts?
4. Felt that you are ill?
5. Been getting any pains in your head?
6. Been getting a feeling of tightness or pressure in your head?
7. Been having hot or cold spells?
8. Lost much sleep over worry?
9. Had difficulty in staying asleep once you are off?
10. Felt constantly under strain?
11. Been getting edgy and bad-tempered?
12. Been getting scared or panicky for no good reason?
13. Found everything getting on top of you?
14. Been feeling nervous and strung-up all the time?
15. Been managing to keep yourself busy and occupied?
16. Been taking longer over the things you do?
17. Felt on the whole you were doing things well?
18. Been satisfied with the way youve carried out your task?
19. Felt that you are playing a useful part in things?
20. Felt capable of making decisions about things?
21. Been able to enjoy your normal day-to-day activities?
22. Been thinking of yourself as a worthless person?
23. Felt that life is entirely hopeless?
24. Felt that life isnt worth living?
25. Thought of the possibility that you might make away with
yourself?
26. Found at times you couldnt do anything because your nerves were
too bad?
27. Found yourself wishing you were dead and away from it all?
28. Found that the idea of taking your own life kept coming into your
mind?
Home | Academic Solutions | Directory of Survey Instruments | Health | General Health
Questionnaire (GHQ)

General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)

Developed in the 1970s, the General Health Questionnaire is a method to quantify the risk
of developing psychiatric disorders. This instrument targets two areas the inability to carry
out normal functions and the appearance of distress to assess well-being in a person.
The format of the full GHQ is 60-item test with a four-point scale for each response. The test
exits in several alternate forms: GHQ-30 (30 items), GHQ-28 (28-items), GHQ-12 (12
items).

Authors
Sir David Goldberg and Paul Williams (1970)
Validity and Reliability
The reported Cronbach alpha coefficient for the GHQ is a range of 0.82 to 0.86. The
instrument is considered as reliable and has been translated into 38 different languages.
When correlated with the global quality of life scale, the GHQ showed negative correlation.
This demonstrates the inverse relationship with an increase in distress leading to a decrease in
quality of life.
Administration, Analysis and Reporting
Statistics Solutions consists of a team of professional methodologists and statisticians that can
assist the student or professional researcher in administering the survey instrument, collecting
the data, conducting the analyses and explaining the results.
References

Goldberg, D. P., & Blackwell, B. (1970). Psychiatric illness in general practice: A detailed
study using a new method of case identification. British Medical Journal, 1, 439-443.
Golderberg, D., & Williams, P. (1988). A users guide to the General Health Questionnaire.
Windsor, UK: NFER-Nelson.
Jackson, C. (2007). The General Health Questionnaire. Occupational Medicine 57, 79.
doi:10.1093/occmed/kql169.

The GHQ comprises 28 items, 7 of which are formulated in a positive

manner (e. g.,Do you feel perfectly well and in good health?), and 21
of which are formulated in a negative manner (e.g.,Do you feel sick?).
In the case of the positive items, the following scale is used: 1 = more
than usual, 2 = as usual, 3 = less than usual, 4 = much less than usual.
In the case of 18 of the negative items, the following scale is used: 1 =
not at all, 2 = not more than usual, 3 = a little more than usual, 4 =
much more than usual. The remaining 3 items use two other types of
response scales.
The two methods of calculating the scores.
The GHQ score is calculated in a traditional manner, by assigning a
score of 0 for response choices 1 and 2 and a score of 1 for response
choices 3 and 4 for all 28 items. The cGHQ is calculated according to

the principle suggested by Goodchild and Duncan-Jones [2], i. e., for

the 18 items formulated negatively, by assigning a score of 0 for response
choice 1 and a score of 1 for the remaining three response
choices 24; the traditional method was preserved for the items formulated
positively.Regardless of the scoring method used, the results
can be expressed in two manners: 1) the overall score on the scale corresponding
to the total of the scores on the 28 items, a continuous score; and 2) the position in relation to
a determined threshold, a dichotomous
score. The presence of a positive result is defined as a
score equal to or greater than 5 on the GHQ or a score equal to or
greater than 13 on the cGHQ. In this study, we used the dichotomous
score, i. e., a patient is identified as positive or negative.