Abstract
The 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) has been extensively used with Chinese population. Yet, it has not been used from a national representative survey in rural China. The aim of this study was to examine how number of kins associated with the factor structures of the CHQ-12 among the rural residents in China. Data were obtained from the 2009 rural-to-urban migrants survey (RUMiC). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (principal component analysis with varimax rotation) was performed to identify factor structures of GHQ-12 regarding number of siblings, age ranking, and number of children. To investigate the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha was used. Internal consistency was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In all, 32171 rural residents in China from 2009 RUMiC participated in the study. The mean age of the respondents was 37.03 (SD = 19.21) years. The psychometric properties and factor structures of the GHQ-12 used were described. All of the fit indices in CFA models were satisfactory. The two-factor and three-factor structures gathered the satisfactory fit indexes in the part of 2009 subsamples. The rural version of the GHQ-12 was reliable measures of psychological distress among the rural residents in China with respect to number of kins. The two-and three-factor structures derived from the present sample, with good model fit in the CFA analysis, which suggested that two-and three-factor solution could be used to assess mental health of rural residents in rural China.
Highlights
The most prevalent mental disorders have been reported in mainland China
This study aimed to evaluate how number of kins influenced the factorial structure of the Chinese version of GHQ-12 among the rural residents
rural-to-urban migrants survey in China project (RUMiC) included GHQ-12 for rural population in China. When it comes to mental health of rural residents in China, academic circles have no alternative but RUMiC
Summary
The prevalence rates of anxiety disorders (e.g., Guo et al, 2016), schizophrenia (e.g., Chan et al, 2015), poor mental health status among older population (Wang et al, 2016), and older adults loneliness (e.g., Zhong et al, 2018) were high in modern China. In rural China, prevalence of reproductive depression (Cao et al, 2015), elderly suicide rate (e.g., Zhong et al, 2016), adolescents aggression (Huang et al, 2017), mental health problems among left-behind children (Tang et al, 2018; Wang J. et al, 2019) and spouses (Nikoloski et al, 2019), students anxiety (e.g., Liu H. et al, 2018), selfstigma (Ran et al, 2018), general depression (Qiu et al, 2018), and hopelessness among lower-class rural residents (Zhang et al, 2019) were high.
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