The GAD-7 questionnaire

Extract

The Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) questionnaire is a seven-item, self-report anxiety questionnaire designed to assess the patient’s health status during the previous 2 weeks. The items enquire about the degree to which the patient has been bothered by feeling nervous, anxious or on edge, not being able to stop or control worrying, worrying too much about different things, having trouble relaxing, being so restless that it is hard to sit still, becoming easily annoyed or irritable and feeling afraid as if something might happen.

Authors

The questionnaire was designed by Spitzer et al. [1] and published in 2006. It is quick to administer and is now used in research and clinical settings.

Usage

The copyright is held by Pfizer Inc. but the questionnaire is free to use. The questionnaire has been validated for use as a screening tool and severity measure [1,2], in primary care [3] and in general populations [4].