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The Rating and Self-rating of Anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Robert Kellner  and
Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth
Robert Kellner
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, 2400 Tucker NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, 2400 Tucker NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
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Abstract

The principles of measuring anxiety are reviewed. Scales of anxiety differ in their time focus: state-anxiety scales measure the present or recent past, whereas trait-anxiety scales measure the ways the subject generally feels. Commonly used scales have adequate validity, but there is incomplete agreement on the boundaries of the construct of anxiety. There are consistent differences in sensitivity among anxiety scales, and they vary greatly in the number of items, number of cues and in the method of scoring. For self-rating scales a large number of items with only two cues (e.g. ‘yes’ and ‘no’), or only two scores for each item, increases the sensitivity of the scale for screening as well as for detecting differences between drug and placebo. A large number of cues decreases the sensitivity of a self-rating scale; it is unknown whether a large number of cues is advantageous in group research, but a small number of items is adequate both for rating and self-rating scales.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 159 , Issue S12: Anxiety and Serotonin , September 1991 , pp. 15 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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