The 6-item Kessler psychological distress scale to survey serious mental illness among Chinese undergraduates: Psychometric properties and prevalence estimate.

Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the 6-item Kessler psychological distress scale (K6) in screening for serious mental illness (SMI) among undergraduates in a major comprehensive university in China.

Method: The K6 was self-completed by 8289 randomly sampled participants. A group of them (n=222) were re-assessed using K6 and interviewed using the Chinese version of Composite International Diagnostic Interview 3.