Brief Description
The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) is a valid and efficient tool for screening for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and assessing its severity in clinical practice and research. The GAD-7 was initially designed as a screening tool and severity indicator of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in primary care settings. It is now widely used both as a screening measure for generalized anxiety across treatment settings, and as a progress monitoring tool for anxiety treatment. Respondents rate how often they experience the anxiety symptoms listed (e.g., “worrying too much about different things”) on a scale from “Not at all” to “Nearly every day.”
Assessment Administration Type
Self-report
Number of questions
7
Age Range for Administration
13+
Recommended Frequency of Administration
Every 2 weeks
Summary of Scoring and Interpretations
The GAD-7 contains 7 questions scored on a 4-point Likert scale with values from 0 (“Not at all”) to 3 (“Nearly every day”). A total score is calculated by summing the item responses and ranges from 0 to 21; higher scores are associated with higher levels of or more severe anxiety. See the table below for score interpretations.
Score | Interpretation |
0-4 | None to Minimal anxiety |
5-9 | Mild anxiety |
10-14 | Moderate anxiety |
15-21 | Severe anxiety |
Blueprint Adjustments
This version of the GAD-7 does not ask the question on functional impairment (i.e., “If you checked off any problems, how difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?”). If you would like this question to be included, you can use the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item + Functional Impairment (GAD-7 + Impairment) assessment on Blueprint. Note, this question is not included when scoring the GAD-7 and is only used to help assess for impairment in functioning, which is a criteria for DSM-5 diagnoses.
Clinical Considerations
Estimated completion time: 2-5 minutes
The GAD-7 was originally developed and validated for ages 18 and above; recent research has validated its use for those 13 and above; see further details here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5765270/.
There is also an abbreviated version of the GAD-7, the 2-item GAD-2. The GAD-7 has also been translated into other languages, including Spanish, which can be found in the Blueprint Assessment library.
Citation
Relevant Articles + Further Resources
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