The internal consistency of the goldberg questionnaire in farmers

Abstract

The General Health Questionnaire is used to detect the existence of a probable psychiatric disorder in the general population, among a community or in non-psychiatric settings, such as in public health or primary care (Pais Ribeiro, et al., 2015). It is sensitive to recent psychiatric disorders but not to stable states with prolonged existence (Goldberg and Williams, 1988). In this study, we evaluated the internal consistency of the Goldberg Questionnaire in 150 farmers aged between 19 and 88 years, with a mean of 55.3 years. The sample,had a higher percentage of male participants living in the central region of Portugal and with a partner; most of them with a schooling up to the 9th grade and professionally active. A Pearson correlation matrix was performed between the subscales and the global index. The results showed that the correlations were positive and significantly correlated, ranging from (r = 0.267) somatic symptoms to social dysfunction and (r = 0.623) somatic symptoms vs anxiety and insomnia. As regards for the correlations between the different subscales with the overall value, it is observed that these are reasonable and positive, ranging from (r = 0.553) with social dysfunction and (r = 0.871) with anxiety and insomnia (table 6) accounting for 30.5% and 75.8% respectively. The results show that the great majority of the items are significant, consubstantiating higher correlational values in the subscales to which they belong, and that this value is higher than the others, being in most cases higher than 0.30.