I am designing the assessment protocol of a randomized controlled trial in which we plan to include patients with anxiety disorders and I am not sure whether the GAD-7 is an adequate measure to include/exclude participants. Even when it is used as a generic measure in many trials to select patients with anxiety disorders, my impression is that the items focus too much on generalized anxiety disorder. Any thoughts about this?
Dear Dr Gonzalez-Robles,
Anxiety disorders are a large group of different disorders with their on symptomatology, short and long term course. If you plan to include patients with different anxiety disorders in your trial, I suggest to use the MINI (International Neuropsychiatry Interview) for DSM5 for diagnosis and the HAMA (Hamilton Scale for Anxiety) and CGI (Clinical Global Impression ) for severity. They could be in your inclusion/exclusion criteria.
Best
Antonio
If you suspect that a scale is not good enough combine it with an other scale e.g. BAI and then correlate the results from the both scales. I have used these scales:
GAD-7 is an accurate tool for screening for anxiety.
DASS-22 or DASS-42 can also be considered
I also suggest that before you decide which scale and which frequency of measurements, decide your hypothesis and objectives . After that you can decide which scales fit better the aims of your trial.
Best
Antonio
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