Abstract

CARVALHO, Hudson W. de; ANDREOLI, Sérgio Baxter  and  JORGE, Miguel Roberto. General Health: Evidences of sex related individual diferences. Aval. psicol. [online]. 2011, vol.10, n.2, pp. 173-179. ISSN 1677-0471.

The current study aimed to verify the existence of sex related differences in the mental health indicators provided by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and to evaluate the pertinence of sex differentiated norms. Participated in this study voluntarily a random sample of 146 adults from the city of Divinópolis, MG. Data were analyzed using t-Tests for independent samples, one-way analysis of variance with Bonferroni correction and Pearson correlations. Women had a higher means than men in all the scores produced by the GHQ, but significant differences with moderate effect sizes were found only in the scales of Psychological Stress, Self-efficacy, Psychosomatic Disorders and Severity of Mental Illness. Our findings are consistent with GHQ Brazilian adaptation and validation study, indicating the existence of moderate sex differences in general health and the pertinence of differentiated norms for men and women. Normative adjustments are, however, required.

Keywords : sex differences; mental health; psychiatric screening; psychological assessment; norms.

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