Personality correlates of psychological distress

Data are reported on the correlation between the 12-item form of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and self-rates stress and alcohol consumption for 904 local government employees. The results show that the GHQ-12 correlates well with those scales of the CPI that reflect poor adjustment, and with MMPI estimates that reflect depression and neurotic fatigue. The GHQ-12 also achieves good discriminant validity, in terms of the pattern of low or zero correlations. Data are also reported on reliability, gender, age, defensiveness and fakeability, and occupational differences.