Psychometrics of a brief measure of anxiety to detect severity and impairment: the Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS)

Abstract

Brief measures of anxiety-related severity and impairment that can be used across anxiety disorders and with subsyndromal anxiety are lacking. The Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) have shown strong psychometric properties with college students and primary care patients. This study examines sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of an abbreviated version of the OASIS that takes only 2-3 min to complete using a non-clinical (college student) sample. 48 participants completed the OASIS and SCID for anxiety disorders, 21 had a diagnosis of ≥1 anxiety disorder, and 4 additional participants had a subthreshold diagnosis. A cut-score of 8 best discriminated those with anxiety disorders from those without, successfully classifying 78% of the sample with 69% sensitivity and 74% specificity. Results from a larger sample (n = 171) showed a single factor structure and excellent convergent and divergent validity. The availability of cut-scores for a non-clinical sample furthers the utility of this measure for settings where screening or brief assessment of anxiety is needed.

Figure 1. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve for OASIS Scores to Predict Presence of Anxiety Disorders

Receiving Operator Characteristic (ROC) Curve for OASIS score to Predict Anxiety Disorder Diagnostic Status *A cut-score of 8 correctly identified the anxiety disorder status of 78% of the sample (i.e., an OASIS score of 8 or above indicates probable anxiety disorder).