Mental health status of Iranian university students using the GHQ-28: a meta-analysis

Mental health is one of the most important factors which can affect all aspects of human life. One of the questionnaires to screen the non-psychotic disorders is the general health questionnaire (GHQ). This meta-analysis study aims to investigate the psychological disorders by using general health questionnaire (GHQ) in Iranian university students.
We searched PubMed, Scopus, MAGIran, Iranmedex, Medlib, SID and ISI data bases for GHQ, psychotic disorders and students as main key words. In order to assess homogeneity and publication bias we used I2 index and Egger test. CMA 2.0 software was used for data analysis.
We found 77 studies performed between 1991 and 2015 which included 44162 students. By using random models, we found a prevalence rate of 33% (95% CI: 0.295, 0.371) for mental disorders among Iranian students which showed an increasing trend (p In this study we found a high prevalence rate of mental disorders with an increasing trend in the Iranian students.