Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems? | ||||
Not at all | Several days | More than half the days | Nearly every day | |
1. Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
2. Not being able to stop or control worrying | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
3. Worrying too much about different things | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
4. Trouble relaxing | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
5. Being so restless that it's hard to sit still | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
6. Becoming easily annoyed or irritable | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
7. Feeling afraid as if something awful might happen | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Total | 0 |
Not difficult at all | Somewhat difficult | Very difficult | Extremely difficult | |
10. If you checked off any problems, 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? | O | O | O | O |
Scores of 5, 10, and 15 are taken as the cut-off points for mild, moderate and severe anxiety, respectively.
When used as a screening tool, further evaluation is recommended when the score is 10 or greater.
Using the threshold score of 10, the GAD-7 has a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 82% for GAD. It is moderately good at screening three other common anxiety disorders - panic disorder (sensitivity 74%, specificity 81%), social anxiety disorder (sensitivity 72%, specificity 80%) and post-traumatic stress disorder (sensitivity 66%, specificity 81%).
Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JBW, Lowe B. A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:1092-1097.