BackgroundIn Eritrea, highly centralized mental health care services and lack of trained psychiatric personnel at primary health care units remain a challenge to the mental health care system. These problems can be minimized by introducing screening programs with a simple screening tool for mental disorders in the primary health care settings. Thus, this study aimed to assess the validity of the WHO self-reporting questionnaire 20 (SRQ-20) in Tigrigna version for use in Eritrean primary health care setting.MethodsThe SRQ-20 was translated into a local language (Tigrinya) in a process of forward and backward translation. SRQ-20 data were collected in a primary health care setting on 266 respondents. Internal reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. Factorial validity was done using principal component analysis with varimax rotation to investigate whether SRQ-20 items properly measure the underlying dimensions of mental illness. Criterion validity was analyzed by looking at the relationship between the SRQ-20 and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Sensitivity, specificity and the predictive values of the screening instrument were used to assess how well the results of SRQ-20 correspond with the criterion instrument.ResultsThe SRQ-20 had good internal reliability (α = 0.78). Factor analysis yielded two factors, explaining 31.2% of the total variance. The instrument performed well in detecting common mental disorders, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.879 (SE = 0.23, 95% CI 0.83–0.92) to the overall sample and with optimal cut-off score at 5/6 with sensitivity 78.6% and specificity 81.5%. Cut-off scores were different for women (5/6) and men (4/5). For male participants, the AUC statistic was 0.877 (SE = 0.04, 95% CI 0.79–0.96) and 0.871 (SE = 0.02 95% CI 0.81–0.92) for female participants.ConclusionThe Tigrinya version of the SRQ-20 can be used for screening probable common mental disorders in Eritrean primary health care setting, but cut-off scores need to be adjusted for men and women separately.

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