Screening for anxiety disorders. Sensitivity and specificity of the Anxiety Screening Questionnaire (ASQ-15).
BACKGROUND
The paper describes the rationale, sensitivity and specificity of the Anxiety Screening Questionnaire (ASQ), a disorder-specific screening instrument for use in primary care.


METHODS
Two hundred and fifty subjects sampled from psychiatric, primary care settings and the community, participated in a test-retest reliability as well as a procedural validity study, using the M-CIDI with DSM-IV algorithms as a diagnostic yardstick.


RESULTS
The ASQ was found to be easy to administer and acceptable and efficient in terms of sensitivity and specificity for generalised anxiety syndromes. The test-retest item reliability was good to excellent with kappa values of 0.6 or above. As compared with the validity standard, the DSM-IV/CIDI diagnoses caseness sensitivity was generally high (above 82%) for all diagnostic domains covered, whereas the specificity was only high for DSM-IV threshold and subthreshold generalised anxiety disorder.


CONCLUSIONS
These preliminary findings demonstrate the usefulness of this anxiety screening questionnaire, constructed closely following the guidelines of specific diagnostic criteria.
Wittchen
H U
HU
Clinical Psychology and Epidemiology, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, München, Germany.
Boyer
P
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012649:Self Concept; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*