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    Attention COACH STUDY participants:

    The principal investigators of the study request that you use the official version of the modified score here.

    GAD-7 (General Anxiety Disorder-7)

    Measures severity of anxiety.

    IMPORTANT

    MDCalc provides tools and content intended for use by healthcare professionals, and is not meant for use by patients. While these may be surveys or questions intended for patients, they are meant to be answered in the context of a clinician’s medical care and not on their own to diagnose or treat any disease.

    When to Use
    Pearls/Pitfalls
    Why Use

    Rapid screening for the presence of a clinically significant anxiety disorder (GAD, PD, SP & PTSD), especially in outpatient settings.

    • The GAD-7 is useful in primary care and mental health settings as a screening tool and symptom severity measure for the four most common anxiety disorders (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Phobia and PostTraumatic Stress Disorder).
    • It is 70-90% sensitive and 80-90% specific across disorders / cutoffs (see Evidence section for more).
    • Higher GAD-7 scores correlate with disability and functional impairment (in measures such as work productivity and health care utilization). (Spitzer RL 2006) (Ruiz MA 2011)
    • The last item “How difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?” - although not used in the calculation - is a good indicator of the patient’s global impairment and can be used to track treatment response.

    Objectively determine initial symptoms severity and monitor symptom changes/effect of treatment over time.

    Ask the patient: how often have they been bothered by the following over the past 2 weeks?

    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3
    Not at all
    0
    Several days
    +1
    More than half the days
    +2
    Nearly every day
    +3

    Result:

    Please fill out required fields.

    Next Steps
    Evidence
    Creator Insights
    Dr. Robert L. Spitzer

    About the Creator

    Robert L. Spitzer, MD, served as professor of psychiatry at Columbia University for 49 years before retiring in 2010. He was influential in the advancement of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). He is recognized in many fields in psychiatry from severe mental illness to comparative diagnostics, such as the United States–United Kingdom Diagnostic Project, in which he helped author a paper comparing schizophrenia definitions in the US and UK.

    To view Dr. Robert L. Spitzer's publications, visit PubMed

    Are you Dr. Robert L. Spitzer? Send us a message to review your photo and bio, and find out how to submit Creator Insights!
    MDCalc loves calculator creators – researchers who, through intelligent and often complex methods, discover tools that describe scientific facts that can then be applied in practice. These are real scientific discoveries about the nature of the human body, which can be invaluable to physicians taking care of patients.
    Content Contributors
    About the Creator
    Dr. Robert L. Spitzer
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