Validity of the Chinese version of the General Health Questionnaire.

The Chinese version of the General Health Questionnaire-30 was administered to 2,150 Chinese secondary school students, along with several other scales that measure somatic and psychological symptoms. GHQ scores were found to correlate significantly with all other measures of psychopathology for the various samples. Further analyses indicated that while the GHQ correlated more strongly with scales that assess acute symptoms than with scales that measure chronic problems, GHQ correlations were higher with measures of state as well as trait anxiety relative to indices that primarily reflect non-anxiety-related symptoms. Correlations between the various factor scores of the GHQ and other indices of psychopathology also were found to be mostly significant. These findings generally suggest that the Chinese GHQ-30 is a valid instrument that assesses "general" psychological health, and the data provide support for the validity of some of the factorial dimensions of this scale.