articleInternational Journal of Methods in Psychiatric ResearchMay 31, 2010BRONZE OA

Screening for serious mental illness in the general population with the K6 screening scale: results from the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) survey initiative

RCRonald C. KesslerJGJennifer GreenMJMichael J. GruberNANancy A. SampsonEJEvelyn J. Bromet

Harvard University · State University of New York · +16 more institutions

PubMed
Indexed incrossrefdoajpubmed

Abstract

Data are reported on the background and performance of the K6 screening scale for serious mental illness (SMI) in the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health (WMH) surveys. The K6 is a six-item scale developed to provide a brief valid screen for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition (DSM-IV) SMI based on the criteria in the US ADAMHA Reorganization Act. Although methodological studies have documented good K6 validity in a number of countries, optimal scoring rules have never been proposed. Such rules are presented here based on analysis of K6 data in nationally or regionally representative WMH surveys in 14 countries (combined N = 41,770 respondents). Twelve-month…

Citation impact

1,419
total citations
FWCI
27.71
Percentile
100%
References
75
Citations per year

Authors

19

Topics & keywords

Topics
Keywords
  • Mental illness
  • Mental health
  • Psychiatry
  • Scale (ratio)
  • Psychology
  • Population
  • Medicine
  • Clinical psychology
No related works found for this paper.

Funding