Reliability and validity of Turkish version of DSM-5 Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to demonstrate the reliability and validity of Turkish version of DSM-5 generalized anxiety disorder scale which was developed to measure the severity of generalized anxiety disorder. Method: In this study,50 in- or out-patients who met the criteria for any anxiety disorder according to DSM-5 were included. One hundred volunteers without any mental or physical disease were also recruited as the control group. Beside the study scale, State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used for concurrent validity.Internal consistency coefficient and item-total correlation analysis were performed for reliability analysis. Exploratory factor analysis was used for validity and correlation analysis with Spearman Correlation Analysis was used for concurrent validity. Results: Mean age was 28.9±12.6 years in the study group and 57.3% of the sample (n=86) were female. Disease duration for anxiety disorder was 17.4±9.5 years in the patient group. The internal consistency of the scale was 0.91. Item-total correlation coefficients were between 0.64-0.83 (p<0.0001). For the exploratory factor analysis one-factor solution was obtained with an eigenvalue of 6.89 representing 68.93% of the total variance. Factor loadings of the items were between 0.48-0.76. Coefficient of correlation analysis with STAI was calculated as r = 0.43 (p <0.0001). Discussion: With these findings, it has been shown that Turkish version of DSM-5 severity scale for generalized anxiety disorder is reliable and valid.