How is the GHQ scored?
All items have a 4 point scoring system that ranges from a ‘better/healthier than normal’ option, through a ‘same as usual’ and a ‘worse/more than usual’ to a ‘much worse/more than usual’ option. The exact wording will depend upon the particular nature of the item. There are four possible methods of scoring the questionnaire: • GHQ scoring (0-0-1-1). This method is advocated by the test author. • Likert scoring (0-1-2-3) • Modified Likert scoring (0-0-1-2) • C-GHQ scoring (0-0-1-1) for positive items, where agreement indicates health, and 0-1-1-1 for negative items, where agreement indicates illness). For both GHQ and Likert scoring, the wording of the items mean that they can all be scored in the same direction (no need to reverse score), so the higher the score, the more severe the condition. The Likert scoring method will produce a wider and smoother score distribution if a researcher wishes to assess severity and the C-GHQ method is more normally distributed than the GHQ scoring me
