Rating Scales for Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Anxiety is defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2000)) as an “apprehensive anticipation of future danger or misfortune accompanied by a feeling of dysphoria or somatic symptoms of tension” (American Psychiatric Association (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2000 p. 820)). The anxiety disorders in the DSM-IV include panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Measures for evaluating anxiety disorders can be useful in clinical practice and research as a tool for measuring change due to treatment, comparing disorder severity and symptom presentation across groups, motivating patients by systematically discussing the extent of their symptoms and impairment, and informing the clinician of symptom presentation and areas of impairment in each individual patient. This chapter is designed to aid clinicians and researchers in choosing empirically driven measures to guide their clinical and research endeavors for each of the aforementioned anxiety disorders. Whenever appropriate, measures are reprinted to facilitate this process.