General Health Questionnaire-12 validity in Colombia and factorial equivalence between clinical and nonclinical participants

Abstract The General Health Questionnaire – 12 (GHQ-12) is a widely used screening self-report for emotional disorders among adults. However, there is little evidence concerning the validity of the GHQ-12 in Colombia and its factorial invariance between nonclinical and clinical samples. Accordingly, the current study aims to explore the GHQ-12 validity in Colombian nonclinical and clinical samples. The GHQ-12 was administered to a total of 1641 participants, including a sample of undergraduates, one of general population, and a clinical sample. The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 across samples was good (overall alpha of .90). The one-factor model showed a good fit to the data and was considered theoretically more coherent than the two-factor model with positive and negative items loading in separate factors. Metric and scalar invariance were observed across nonclinical and clinical samples. The GHQ-12 scores were strongly and positively related to emotional symptoms and experiential avoidance, and negatively related to life satisfaction. According to the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, a threshold score of 11/12 was optimal to identify emotional disorders. In conclusion, the GHQ-12 is a valid screening self-report in Colombia that provides scores that can be compared across clinical and nonclinical participants.