Assessing adaptation of the psychometric properties of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) using the Rasch Measurement Model among Indian teenagers

Syed Faraz Ali    -  School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
Aqeel Khan*    -  School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
Adibah Binti Abdul Latif  -  School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
Abdul Wahab Pathath    -  Department of Clinical Neurosciences, College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
Shabnam Shabnam    -  Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India
Mohammad Asif  -  Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
Arieff Salleh Rosman    -  Center of Research for Fiqh Science and Technology (CFiRST), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

(*) Corresponding Author
DOI: 10.21580/pjpp.v8i2.18077

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) is widely accepted as an instrument used to examine diagnosable psychiatric disorders. It is also routinely used as a measure of psychological morbidity. This study aimed to assess and establish the psychometric properties of the GHQ-12 among Indian teenagers. The tool was administered to 212 adolescents aged from 12 to 18 years. Following two-stage cluster sampling, the data were collected from Aligarh district, India. Fleiss Kappa analysis was used to determine test reliability and showed an overall value of 0.94, based on the rater agreement for the instrument. Furthermore, the Rasch measurement model was used, with values of 0.79 and 0.83 for person and item reliability, respectively. Moreover, the value of unidimensionality was found to be 37.9%. Additionally, item fit statistics and item analysis were conducted for the instrument. Based on the preliminary data and findings, the study provides primary evidence for the reliability and validity of GHQ-12. Hence, the questionnaire can lead to more multi-site studies in India.

Keywords: General Health Questionnaire; instrument validation; measuring tool validation

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