الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 16 |  |  |
| | | from | 16 | | |
Abstract
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 454 secondary school students from seven schools in Ashmoun city, Menoufia Governorate. It was carried out to measure the validity of the Arabic version of the GHQ -30 in secondary school students against the psychiatrist’s assessment by means of the clinical interview schedule. The GHQ was developed by Goldberg in the 1970’s (Goldberg, 1972). It has been translated into many languages and it is extensively used in different settings and different cultures. For example, it was translated into the Norwegian language in 1978, and has been validated and used in various samples of chronically ill people (Chan, 1995). The study design was cross-sectional and GHQ-30 data was assessed by use of self-report, and consequently stability of the instrument could not be tested. Despite the lack of another instrument which could be used as a gold standard to test the sensitivity and specificity. In our study, we used the psychiatric evaluation through Structured Clinical Interview of DSM IV (SCIDI) to diagnose psychiatric disorders as a gold standard to test the sensitivity and specificity of the Arabic version of the GHQ-30. The testing of the validity of the Arabic version of the GHQ-30 in this study showed that the Arabic version of the GHQ-30 was found to have satisfactory results according to reliability, in terms of internal consistency and construct validity so the instrument may be suitable for screening mental health in adolescent population. By using the Structured Clinical Interview of DSM-IV for studied groups, the number of those who have psychiatric disorders was 76 (16.7%). Anxiety disorders were the most prevalent among (47) (10.3%) the studied students; including (17) (3.7%) students of Specific Phobia; (15) (3.3%) as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and (15) (3.3%) as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Depressive Disorders were prevalent among (22) (4.8%) students, Conduct Disorder (5) (1.1%) and Adjustment Disorders (2) (0.4%) In the present study, the chosen cut-off scores using Likert format scoring of the GHQ-30 was 38, whereas corresponding cutoff scores of the GHQ-30 for males and females was 33.5 and 39.5 respectively. Validation studies of the Arabic version have shown GHQ to be multidimensional with a variety of different concepts. Higher total scores reflect higher levels of psychological distress in the questionnaire, the responses range over a 4-point scale, from “less than usual” to “much more than usual”, which also includes symptoms compared with what is normal for the patient. The scale includes both positively phrased items (agreement with which indicates psychological health), and negatively phrased items (agreement with which indicates psychological distress). The GHQ versions focus on two major areas within the concept of psychological distress: 1) the inability to carry out normal functions and 2) the appearance of new and distressing phenomena (Goldberg and Williams, 1988). Regarding the several versions of the GHQ that have been developed, the full 60-item version is ideally recommended when possible (Goldberg and Williams, 1988). However, that version of the instrument is rather comprehensive, and a lot of physical items are included. In the abbreviated versions the physical symptoms are removed, and among the several existing versions, the 30-item GHQ has been used most. The 30-item version has been clearly recommended for use in general practice for screening mental illness, and the testing of the Arabic version presented in this study supports this recommendation, especially for use among adolescent people in community settings. This is simply because the items of the GHQ-30 cover areas that are relevant for adolescent living at school, such as psychological distress, self-esteem; daily life activities and social relationships. The findings of the present study indicated that the Arabic version of GHQ-30 is a useful instrument to be used for assessing the overall psychological well-being of secondary school students.