Tag: GHQ-12

For a Nigerian psychology project, the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are the safest validated scales to adopt: free, no permission required, and validated on Nigerian university students in a study indexed since 2006. The DASS-21 is the public-domain runner-up when one instrument has to cover depression, anxiety and stress. The PSS-10 needs a free permission request, the Rosenberg scale is free and now has Hausa and Pidgin versions, and the GHQ-12 is a commercial product that a student budget rarely covers.

Every claim in that table was checked against the instrument’s own website and the Crossref or OpenAlex record on 30 August 2026, and the reasons for the ranking are set out below. The criteria, in order: whether a student can use it legally at no cost, whether there is a Nigerian validation the panel will recognise, how many items it adds to a questionnaire that already carries a bio-data section, and whether the scoring can be done without a manual.

Why a validated scale, and why the panel will ask

A psychology project in a Nigerian department is expected to measure its constructs with an instrument that has published reliability and validity, not a set of Likert items drafted the night before. The instrument section of Chapter Three names the scale, its author and year, the number of items, the response format, the scoring rule, the reliability reported by the author and the reliability you obtained in your pilot. A self-made scale can be defended, but it costs a content-validity round with three lecturers and a pilot, which is the process the public health questionnaire guide walks through for designing and validating a questionnaire from scratch. For the constructs below, that work has been done for you, and the question is only which scale to adopt.

1. PHQ-9 and GAD-7: the recommendation

The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (Kroenke, Spitzer and Williams, 2001, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606 to 613) scores nine depression symptoms over the last two weeks on a 0 to 3 scale, giving a total of 0 to 27. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams and Löwe, 2006, Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092 to 1097) does the same for seven anxiety symptoms, total 0 to 21. Both are downloadable from the publisher’s screener site, which states that no permission is required to reproduce, translate, display or distribute them. That sentence is worth quoting in your Chapter Three, because it ends the permission question before the panel raises it.

The Nigerian evidence is the strongest of any scale on this page. Adewuya, Ola and Afolabi (2006) tested the PHQ-9 as a depression screen among Nigerian university students (Journal of Affective Disorders, 96(1 to 2), 89 to 93), a paper cited several hundred times; Obadeji and colleagues (2015) used it in a Nigerian primary care setting; and a 2026 study evaluated the Hausa-language PHQ-9 and GAD-7 in displacement camps. If your topic is depression or anxiety among students, workers or patients, this pair is the choice a panel in Ibadan, Nsukka or Zaria will not question.

2. DASS-21: the runner-up when one scale must do three jobs

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33(3), 335 to 343) come in a 42-item form and a 21-item short form with seven items per subscale. The authors’ site at the University of New South Wales states that the DASS is in the public domain and that permission is not needed to use it; the manual, which holds the severity cut-offs, costs AU$55. Two rules the FAQ on that site insists on: multiply each DASS-21 subscale score by two before comparing it with published DASS data, and do not treat the severity labels as diagnoses.

The weakness is the Nigerian record. A title search of OpenAlex for the DASS-21 with Nigeria or Nigerian on 30 August 2026 returned one entry, a 2026 dataset from a National Open University survey, and no validation paper. The scale is used constantly in Nigerian projects, but you cannot cite a Nigerian validation for it. Write that honestly: cite the 1995 paper, report the alpha you obtain, and expect the question. If the alpha comes in low, the causes and the repair are in the answer to what a good Cronbach’s alpha is and what to do if yours is low.

3. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: free, short, and now in Hausa and Pidgin

The RSES is ten statements answered on a four-point agree-to-disagree scale, with five items reversed. The University of Maryland’s sociology department publishes the items and scoring on its site, notes that test-retest correlations typically fall between 0.82 and 0.88 and Cronbach’s alpha between 0.77 and 0.88 across samples, and directs users to Rosenberg’s 1965 book Society and the Adolescent Self-Image (Princeton University Press) as the primary source. Score 0 to 3 per item for a 0 to 30 total, or 1 to 4 for 10 to 40; say which in Chapter Three.

Nigerian evidence exists at both ends of the country. A 2014 study examined the suitability of the RSES for adult use in south-western Nigeria, and two 2025 papers in Leprosy Review reported preliminary cross-cultural validations of Hausa and Nigerian Pidgin versions. For a self-esteem topic among secondary school or undergraduate respondents, the RSES is the expected instrument and adds only ten items.

4. Perceived Stress Scale: free, but file the request first

Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein’s PSS (1983, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385 to 396) asks how often the respondent has felt overwhelmed, in control or unable to cope in the last month, on a 0 to 4 scale; the 10-item form is the standard, with 4-item and 14-item versions. Carnegie Mellon’s laboratory page for the scale states that permission requests go through the Mapi Research Trust ePROVIDE platform, that submitting a request is completely free of charge and that it does not commit you to buying anything. File it the week your topic is approved; the approval is an appendix item the panel likes to see.

Nigerian studies use the PSS rather than validate it: a 2017 paper on psychosocial correlates of perceived stress among undergraduate medical students in Nigeria and a 2019 paper on perceived stress among first-year students at a private medical school both report PSS data. Cite the 1983 paper for the instrument and one or two of these for Nigerian norms, and reverse the four positively worded items before summing.

5. GHQ-12: strong lineage, wrong price for a student

The General Health Questionnaire measures general psychological distress, and the 12-item version is the survey screener. The 1997 validation across the WHO study of mental illness in general health care (Goldberg and colleagues, Psychological Medicine, 27(1), 191 to 197) has Gureje among its authors, the GHQ-28 was validated in a Nigerian antenatal clinic in 1992, and Aloba, Opakunle and Ogunrinu examined the GHQ-12’s factor structure among Nigerian adolescents in 2019. The lineage is excellent. The problem is access: the GHQ is distributed by GL Assessment as a commercial product, with licence terms and pricing on request and no free download. Unless your department holds a licence, choose the PHQ-9 or DASS-21 for the same construct and say why in Chapter Three.

The instrument paragraph, written for the recommendation

Depression was measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke, Spitzer and Williams, 2001), a nine-item self-report scale in which respondents rate the frequency of each symptom over the preceding two weeks from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day), giving a total score of 0 to 27. The instrument is available for use without permission from its publisher. It has been validated among Nigerian university students by Adewuya, Ola and Afolabi (2006), who reported satisfactory sensitivity and specificity in that population. In the present study a pilot administration to 30 students of a different faculty yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.84.

Five facts in five sentences: the scale, the format and range, the permission position, the Nigerian validation, and your own reliability. The same shape serves any of the scales above. Which test the scores then meet in Chapter Four, whether a t-test between groups or a correlation with a second scale, follows from the design and is set out in the answer to which statistical test a final year project should use. Entering the scored data correctly, reversed items included, is the first step of the guide to analysing project data in SPSS.

Three mistakes that get the instrument section returned

• Citing a scale from a project you found online. The panel wants the primary paper, which for every scale here is one journal article or one book. All five are listed above with volume and pages, checked against Crossref.
• Adopting a scale and then editing the items. Rewording items produces a new, unvalidated instrument. If an item does not fit your respondents, say so and report the alpha with and without it.
• Claiming a Nigerian validation that does not exist. For the DASS-21 and PSS-10 there is Nigerian use, not Nigerian validation. Write the distinction rather than blur it; the examiner who works on instruments will know.

Frequently asked questions

Which validated scale is best for a psychology project in Nigeria?

For depression or anxiety, the PHQ-9 and GAD-7: free, no permission required, and validated among Nigerian university students. For stress, the PSS-10 after a free permission request. For self-esteem, the Rosenberg scale. For all three negative states in one instrument, the DASS-21.

Is the DASS-21 free to use in Nigeria?

Yes. The authors state that the DASS is in the public domain and that permission is not needed. Only the manual, which holds the severity cut-offs, is sold, for AU$55.

Do I need permission to use the PHQ-9?

No. The publisher’s screener site states that no permission is required to reproduce, translate, display or distribute the PHQ and GAD-7 screeners and their translations.

Do I need permission to use the Perceived Stress Scale?

A request must be submitted through the Mapi Research Trust ePROVIDE platform. Submitting it is free and does not commit you to a purchase, according to the scale author’s laboratory page.

Is the GHQ-12 free for students?

No. It is distributed commercially by GL Assessment with licence terms on request and no free download. Use it only if your department holds a licence.

Has the DASS-21 been validated in Nigeria?

Not in any paper surfaced by a title search of OpenAlex on 30 August 2026. It is widely used in Nigerian samples, so cite the 1995 original, report your own reliability, and describe the position honestly.

Can I translate a scale into Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo for my project?

The PHQ-9 and GAD-7 may be translated without permission, and Hausa versions have already been evaluated. For other scales, a translation is a new instrument: you would need forward and back translation and a pilot, which is a project in itself.

How many items can a project questionnaire carry?

Bio-data plus one or two scales is the usual load. The PHQ-9 and GAD-7 together add 16 items, the DASS-21 adds 21, the RSES 10 and the PSS-10 10. Three full scales in one questionnaire is where completion rates fall.

What reliability should I report for an adopted scale?

Both the author’s published reliability and the Cronbach’s alpha from your own pilot. An adopted scale does not exempt you from the pilot; it only means the pilot is expected to confirm rather than establish reliability.