Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7

GAD-7

psychologyhealth sciencesFree for research use

A 7-item self-report instrument for screening and measuring the severity of generalized anxiety disorder.

Items

Response format

4-point frequency scale

Version

1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Anxiety was assessed using the GAD-7 (Spitzer et al., 2006), a 7-item self-report scale with excellent internal consistency (α = .92). Scores of 5, 10, and 15 represent mild, moderate, and severe anxiety thresholds respectively.

Reliability & validation

Validation population

Primary care patients

Test–retest

0.83

Cronbach's α

0.92

Response anchors

Not at all · Several days · More than half the days · Nearly every day

Known limitations

Validated in primary care populations. High sensitivity may produce false positives in non-clinical samples. Not a diagnostic instrument.

Original citation

Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B. W., Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: The GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092-1097.

https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092

Use GAD-7 in Folio Surveyor

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Open Surveyor

Library entry verified January 2024. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.