Lack of validated measures creates obstacles for psychology research progress. The validation of widely used instruments can facilitate research and clinical work.

Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a cost-effective and psychometrically sound (Spitzer et al., 1999) instrument which is used for the diagnosis of specific psychiatric disorders according to the established diagnostic criteria. Unfortunately, despite its potential utility, PHQ has not been validated or used with Greek language populations.

The aim of this study is to conduct a PHQ validation in 520 Greek native-language participants in Cyprus. Appropriate self-report Greek-language measures were identified based on the convergence between the diagnostic specifications of these measures and PHQ diagnoses. The identified measures and the translated PHQ were used for data collection. Participants’ demographic and health information was also gathered.

Currently, the project is in its final stages of data collection, and will be completed by December, 2010. Preliminary results, suggest that a number of PHQ subscales have high internal consistency (e.g. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .81 on Somatization, .83 on Depression) and correlate moderately with other diagnostic measures used (e.g. depression scale r = .43, p < .001 with BDI-II; panic scale r = .5, p < .001 with PDSQ panic scale).

Upon completion of data collection, PHQ factor structure, reliability, validity, sensitivity, and specificity will be further investigated. Item and correlation analysis will be confirmed.

Strength and weaknesses of PHQ subscales and the employed validation method will also be discussed.