Psychometric properties of the 28-Item General Health Questionnaire in nurses: a proposal with 24 items

Abstract

Background: The psychometric properties of measurement instruments should be assessed in different populations. Objective: To analyze the psychometric properties of the 28-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) in nurses. Methodology: Methodological validation study of measurement instruments. Analysis of psychometric properties, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) by the principal component analysis method, and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, with a nonprobability sample of 1,264 nurses. Results: EFA suggests keeping four factors and deleting four items in three dimensions (items 3, 16, 21, and 26). The variance explained by the four factors was 61.5%, and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.93. The general health scores did not change significantly after deleting the four items. The comparison between the 24-item version and the 28-item version revealed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.996 (p <0.001) and a cutoff point of 20.5, with a 96.3% sensitivity and a 98.4 specificity. Conclusion: The reassessment of the psychometric properties of GHQ-28 in nurses suggests a reduction to 24 items.