The psychometric properties of the subscales of the GHQ-28 in a multi-ethnic maternal sample: results from the Born in Bradford cohort

Poor maternal mental health can impact on children's development and wellbeing; however, there is concern about the comparability of screening instruments administered to women of diverse ethnic origin. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC psychiatry 2013-02, Vol.13 (1), p.55-55, Article 55
Main Authors: Prady, Stephanie L, Miles, Jeremy N V, Pickett, Kate E, Fairley, Lesley, Bloor, Karen, Gilbody, Simon, Kiernan, Kathleen, Mann, Rachel, Wright, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis
Anxiety
Child development
Ethnicity - psychology
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Health sciences
Health Status
Humans
Insomnia
Likert scale
Maternal & child health
Medical research
Mental Disorders - diagnosis
Mental Disorders - ethnology
Mental Health
Mental health care
Mental illness
Minorities
Personal Satisfaction
Population
Pregnancy
Pregnant women
Psychiatry
Psychological aspects
Psychometrics
Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teaching hospitals
Womens health
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Summary:Poor maternal mental health can impact on children's development and wellbeing; however, there is concern about the comparability of screening instruments administered to women of diverse ethnic origin. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the subscale structure of the GHQ-28 in an ethnically diverse community cohort of pregnant women in the UK (N = 5,089). We defined five groups according to ethnicity and language of administration, and also conducted a CFA between four groups of 1,095 women who completed the GHQ-28 both during and after pregnancy. After item reduction, 17 of the 28 items were considered to relate to the same four underlying concepts in each group; however, there was variation in the response to individual items by women of different ethnic origin and this rendered between group comparisons problematic. The EFA revealed that these measurement difficulties might be related to variation in the underlying concepts being measured by the factors. We found little evidence to recommend the use of the GHQ-28 subscales in routine clinical or epidemiological assessment of maternal women in populations of diverse ethnicity.
ISSN:1471-244X
1471-244X
DOI:10.1186/1471-244X-13-55