Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Background: The ongoing ethnic conflict and internal displacement in Manipur (Northeast India) have created an urgent need for culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health assessment tools. However, no validated Manipuri versions of widely used psychological instruments currently exist. Objective: This pilot study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and preliminarily validate the Manipuri versions of three standardized self-report measures—the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and the 20-item PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5)—for future use with Manipuri-speaking populations, particularly internally displaced persons (IDPs). Methods: A forward-backward translation procedure was employed, followed by expert panel review and pretesting. A purposive sample of 60 student-teachers (61.67% female; mean age = 28.12 years, SD = 3.13) from two teacher education institutes in Manipur completed the translated instruments along with a demographic questionnaire and the Health Consciousness (HC) scale. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was examined through convergent validity (Pearson correlations with HC and PSS-10 scores) and exploratory factor analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax rotation. Results: All three scales demonstrated good internal consistency: GHQ-12 (α = 0.88), PSS-10 (α = 0.89), and PCL-5 (α = 0.86). Convergent validity was supported by significant correlations between GHQ-12 and HC (r = -0.66, p < .001), PSS-10 and HC (r = -0.58, p < .001), and PCL-5 and PSS-10 (r = 0.71, p < .001). PCA revealed theoretically meaningful two-factor structures for all three instruments, explaining 51.36% (GHQ-12), 65.9% (PSS-10), and 68.15% (PCL-5) of the total variance respectively. Conclusion: The Manipuri versions of GHQ-12, PSS-10, and PCL-5 show preliminary reliability and construct validity in a student-teacher sample. Larger-scale validation studies with IDP populations and clinical samples are warranted before widespread implementation.
Author: Dr. Chongtham Khogendra Singh
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7162017355