<p>Identifying university students presenting mental disorders is important. This study aimed to validate a short scale. 3,484 university students from a public institution in the south of Brazil answered 10 questions extracted from the instruments: Patient Health Questionnaire and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire. Factor analysis identified two factors positively and significantly correlated: depression and anxiety (r = .68; p &lt;.01), explaining 60.10% of the scale variance. These two factors are included in a general second-order factor that assesses student mental health. The alpha and omega consistency indexes were above 0.80. Cluster analysis was applied resulting a two clusters model: "Students without mental health problems" and “Students with mental health problems”. The results were consistent with previous studies, and the scale's evidence was satisfactory, recommending its use for mental health screening in students.</p>