Psychiatric screening in the emergency department: validation of the General Health Questionnaire.

Both a 28-item psychiatric scale, the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) were administered to 25 emergency department patients to determine the validity of the GHQ as a screening instrument for psychopathology in the emergency department setting. There was a significant association (P = 0.0343) between GHQ scores and DIS assessment. The sensitivity of the GHQ in this series was 55.6% and the specificity was 87.5% when compared with the DIS. This suggests that the GHQ may prove to be a valuable screening tool for patients with somatic complaints to detect unsuspected psychiatric illness in the emergency department.