ABSTRACT
Objetivou-se verificar a existência de diferenças relacionadas ao sexo com base nos indicadores de saúde mental providos pelo Questionário de Saúde Geral (QSG) e avaliar a pertinência de normas diferenciadas por sexo. Participou voluntariamente do estudo uma amostra aleatória de 146 adultos da cidade de Divinópolis, MG. Os dados foram analisados por meio de testes t para amostras independentes, análise de variância simples com correção de Bonferroni e correlações de Pearson. Mulheres apresentaram médias superiores às dos homens em todos os escores do QSG, entretanto diferenças significantes com magnitude de efeito moderada foram encontradas nas escalas de Estresse Psíquico, Autoeficácia, Distúrbios Psicossomáticos e Gravidade de Doença Mental. Nossos achados são congruentes com os do estudo de adaptação e validação do QSG para o Brasil, indicando a presença de diferenças moderadas relacionadas ao sexo em saúde geral e a pertinência de normas diferenciadas para homens e mulheres. Ajustes normativos mostram-se necessários.
The current study aimed to verify the existence of sex related differences in the mental health indicators provided by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and to evaluate the pertinence of sex differentiated norms. Participated in this study voluntarily a random sample of 146 adults from the city of Divinópolis, MG. Data were analyzed using t-Tests for independent samples, one-way analysis of variance with Bonferroni correction and Pearson correlations. Women had a higher means than men in all the scores produced by the GHQ, but significant differences with moderate effect sizes were found only in the scales of Psychological Stress, Self-efficacy, Psychosomatic Disorders and Severity of Mental Illness. Our findings are consistent with GHQ Brazilian adaptation and validation study, indicating the existence of moderate sex differences in general health and the pertinence of differentiated norms for men and women. Normative adjustments are, however, required.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Adolescent , Young Adult , Middle Aged , Mental Health , Psychometrics , Mass Screening/psychology , Sex CharacteristicsABSTRACT
A short questionnaire, selecting a few items from an existing general health questionnaire is presented. A short screening questionnaire for psychiatric screening in primary care was developed. The Thai version of GHQ-60 was chosen as the source of items to be selected. A technique called search partition analysis (SPAN) was applied to the data derived from 100 patients attending a mobile community health service unit. The best subset of five items in a form of Boolean expression {(q49 > 1) or (q46 > 1) or (q55 > 0 and q1 > 1) or (q55 > 0 and q44 > 1)} was obtained. All of the validity measures except sensitivity are higher than those of the 12- and 60-item forms. The decision rule has potential for detecting psychiatric morbidity in primary care.