Evaluating cutpoints for the MHI-5 and MCS using the GHQ-12: a comparison of five different methods

Kelly, Mark James ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7744-3780, Dunstan, Frank David John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1043-5281, Lloyd, Keith and Fone, David Lawrence ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6476-4881 2008. Evaluating cutpoints for the MHI-5 and MCS using the GHQ-12: a comparison of five different methods. BMC Psychiatry 8 , 10. 10.1186/1471-244X-8-10

Preview

PDF - Published Version Download (338kB) | Preview

Abstract

Background The Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5) and the Mental Health Component Summary score (MCS) derived from the Short Form 36 (SF-36) instrument are well validated and reliable scales. A drawback of their construction is that neither has a clinically validated cutpoint to define a case of common mental disorder (CMD). This paper aims to produce cutpoints for the MHI-5 and MCS by comparison with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Methods Data were analysed from wave 9 of the British Household Panel Survey (2000), providing a sample size of 14,669 individuals. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were used to compare the scales and define cutpoints for the MHI-5 and MCS, using the following optimisation criteria: the Youden Index, the point closest to (0,1) on the ROC curve, minimising the misclassification rate, the minimax method, and prevalence matching. Results For the MHI-5, the Youden Index and the (0,1) methods both gave a cutpoint of 76, minimising the misclassification rate gave a cutpoint of 60 and the minimax method and prevalence matching gave a cutpoint of 68. For the MCS, the Youden Index and the (0,1) methods gave cutpoints of 51.7 and 52.1 respectively, minimising the error rate gave a cutpoint of 44.8 and both the minimax method and prevalence matching gave a cutpoint of 48.9. The correlation between the MHI-5 and the MCS was 0.88. Conclusion The Youden Index and (0,1) methods are most suitable for determining a cutpoint for the MHI-5, since they are least dependent on population prevalence. The choice of method is dependent on the intended application. The MHI-5 performs remarkably well against the longer MCS.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Additional Information:	PDF uploaded in accordance with publishers policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php as of 19/02/14.
Publisher:	BioMed Central
ISSN:	1471-244X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2023 20:42
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/37490

Citation Data

Cited 195 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item