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The Vietnamese Version of the Self Reporting Questionnaire 20 (SRQ-20) in Detecting Mental Disorders in Rural Vietnam: A Validation Study

Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam, and Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; kbgiangvn{at}yahoo.com

Peter Allebeck

Department of Public Health Sciences, Norrbacka, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Social Medicine Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Gunnar Kullgren

Department of Clinical Sciences, Psychiatry, Umea University, Umea, Sweden.

Nguyen van Tuan

Department of Psychiatry, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Background: There is a need to develop instruments to measure mental disorders in developing countries because mental disorders are increasingly being recognised as a major public health problem. There has been no previous study in Vietnam validating screening instruments for mental health problems. Aim: To adapt and to validate the Self Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20) in the Vietnamese community.

Methods: A Vietnamese version of the SRQ-20 was developed and tested in 52 persons in a district hospital sample and 485 persons in a community sample. The psychiatrists' diagnoses were taken as the validity criterion. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to identify the optimal cut-off value. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated to assess the performance of SRQ in different sociodemographic groups.

Results: In the district hospital sample, the optimal cut-off score was 5/6 with a sensitivity of 85%, a specificity of 46% and an AUC of 0.74 (95% CI: 0.59–0.89). In the community sample, it was 6/7 with a sensitivity of 85%, a specificity of 61% and AUC of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.81–0.93). In terms of AUC, SRQ performed significantly better in the age group 18–24 years as compared with other ages and with single persons as compared with widowed or divorced people.

Conclusion: The SRQ-20 was found feasible to use and adapt to the Vietnamese setting. We confirmed the value of this instrument for use in developing countries, but the optimal cut-off limit has to be assessed and determined according to local conditions.

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 52, No. 2, 175-184 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0020764006061251


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