Background: The 12-Item HEALTH AND WELLNESS (GHQ-12) questionnaire is one of the most commonly used instruments in screening studies on mental health. explained 48% of the observed variances. The confirmatory element analysis was showed fit for the data. Conclusions: The current study findings confirm that the Iranian version of GHQ-12 has a good element structure and is a reliable and valid instrument to measure mental distress and sociable dysfunction. Keywords: General Health Questionnaire, Mental Health, Create Validity 1. Background The burden of mental disorders in terms of disability-adjusted existence and economy is definitely high in many societies and is considered as probably one of the most common causes of disability in the world (1-3). In addition, mental health is considered as an intrinsic value, as well as physical Rabbit Polyclonal to THBD health (4). In Iran, the prevalence of psychiatric disorders is definitely 10.81% and the pattern is similar to those of the European countries. In fact, seven million Iranians have one or more form 1245907-03-2 supplier of the mental disorders (5). A study from Iran exposed the prevalence of mental disorders in rural areas and in urban areas were 21.3% and 20.9%, respectively (6). The studies carried out in Ardabil province, Iran, showed that 27.8% of the urban population have mental disorders (7); the pace of mental health disorders among caregivers with chronic psychiatric disorders in Mazandaran province was 35% (8). In general, the prevalence assorted from 11.9% to 30.2%, indicating that 14% of the global burden of disease could be contributed to disabling nature of mental disorders (9). Mental health is a significant indication of societies’ general health conditions and may be measured by various testing instruments, which are able to diagnose and determine disorders (10, 11). One of these instruments is definitely General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) which is a screening instrument to detect the mental disorders in the general human population and within community or non-psychiatric clinical settings (12). The original instrument has 60 questions, but other versions such as 12 (13), 30 (14) and 28 (6, 15), are also used. The GHQ-12 is definitely a concise, affordable, available, efficient and well-validated instrument, recommended by World Health Corporation (WHO) as a standard psychiatric screening instrument (16, 17). The GHQ-12 has been translated into different languages, and its psychometric properties have been examined in various populations and countries (18-23). This questionnaire is scored in two different ways including Likert (0-1-2-3) and bimodal (0-0-1-1) scoring styles. For the first time, Montazeri et al. translated the questionnaire into Farsi and carried out a validation 1245907-03-2 supplier study. The results identified a two-factor structure for the questionnaire (22). Since then several studies use the Iranian GHQ-12 instrument (25, 26). However, in some other studies the 28-item version was used (24, 25). The Iranian national census found that approximately 21 million young people accounting more than one-third of the population, and adolescents and young adults constitute 40% of the general population (26). Recent studies of the disease burden have highlighted the importance of psychiatric conditions in young people. 2. Objectives The current study aimed to determine the factor structure of the 1245907-03-2 supplier GHQ-12 by confirmatory factor analyses among the students of the University of Tehran, Iran; therefore, it was decided to examine psychometric properties of the Iranian version of the GHQ-12 in a sample of Iranian young people. 3. Materials and Methods 3.1. Study Design and Participants It was a cross-sectional study. The study population consisted of the students of University of Tehran. The students of University of Tehran are mainly divided into three categories: engineering, basic sciences, and humanities. They were first classified according to their major and educational level, and then the desired number of samples was selected from each category based on the category size. Then, the proportional-stratified random sampling was performed based on the educational level and major for 2011-2012 academic year. The inclusion criteria were: university students aged 18 to 39 years, not diagnosed with a clear.