Screening for generalized anxiety disorder in geriatric primary care patients.
OBJECTIVE
To compare two brief screening measures as tools for detecting generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) among older primary care patients.


METHODS
Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to compare the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18) against GAD diagnoses obtained from a structured diagnostic interview.


RESULTS
The HADS Anxiety subscale was the only measure that distinguished individuals with and without GAD. A cutpoint greater than or equal to 8 on the HADS Anxiety subscale resulted in a sensitivity of 0.967 and a specificity of 0.667 for detecting GAD.


CONCLUSIONS
The HADS Anxiety subscale appears to show some advantages over the BSI-18 Anxiety subscale as a brief, self-report measure of anxiety symptoms among older medical patients.
Wetherell
Julie Loebach
JL
University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. jwetherell@ucsd.edu
Birchler
Georgia D
GD
Ramsdell
Joe
J
Unützer
Jürgen
J
D000368:Aged; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002140:California; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity