As depression has become a major disease burden in Malaysia, an easy-to-use tool with good psychometric qualities is urgently needed to facilitate the screening process. The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric qualities of the 5-item World Health Organization Well-being Index (WHO-5) and the optimal cut-off point for depression screening in the Malaysian context. A total of 610 undergraduate students answered an online survey consisting of the English version of the WHO-5 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Results of confirmatory factor analysis supported the single-factor model. The present study found the WHO-5 had a good reliability and concurrent validity. Moreover, receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that ≤13 was the optimal threshold with acceptable sensitivity and specificity to detect depression. This study concludes the WHO-5 is a brief, valid, and reliable depression screening tool among young adults in Malaysia.

As depression has become a major disease burden in Malaysia, an easy-to-use tool with good psychometric is urgently needed to facilitate the screening process. The current study investigated the psychometric qualities of the 5-item World Health Organization Well-being Index (WHO-5) and the optimal cut-off point for depression screening in the Malaysian context. A total of 610 undergraduate students answered an online survey consisting of the English version of the WHO-5 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the single-factor model. The WHO-5 also demonstrated good reliability and concurrent validity. Moreover, receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that ≤ 13 was the optimal threshold with acceptable sensitivity and specificity. The results support the usability of the WHO-5 to screen for depression among young adults in Malaysia. Moreover, the findings are also consistent with the literature highlighting the potential of the WHO-5 as a cross-cultural tool for depression screening.