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. 2007 Feb;22(2):115-23.
doi: 10.1002/gps.1701.

Screening for generalized anxiety disorder in geriatric primary care patients

Julie Loebach Wetherell  1 , Georgia D Birchler, Joe Ramsdell, Jürgen Unützer
Affiliations

Screening for generalized anxiety disorder in geriatric primary care patients

Julie Loebach Wetherell et al. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2007 Feb.

Abstract

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.

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