General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)

Purpose: To screen for non-psychotic psychiatric disorders

Age: 18+ years

Time: 3-8 minutes

Administration: Individual and group

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is a self-administered screening device for identifying minor psychiatric disorders in the general population and within community or non-psychiatric clinical settings (such as primary care or general medical out-patients).

The GHQ assesses the respondent’s current state and asks if that differs from his or her usual state. It is therefore sensitive to short-term psychiatric disorders but not to the long-standing attributes of the respondent.

The GHQ focuses on two major areas:

1. Inability to carry out normal functions
2. The appearance of new and distressing phenomena.

The GHQ is available in four different versions, enabling researchers and clinicians to select the version most appropriate to their individual requirements:

1. GHQ-60 – full length 60-item questionnaire
2. GHQ-30 - short form without items relating to physical illness
3. GHQ-28 – scaled version that assesses somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression
4. GHQ-12 - quick, reliable and sensitive short form ideal for research studies