A new questionnaire is available with your Erepsonline subscription. The Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) is a brief measure of general anxiety symptoms, and is commonly used in a wide variety of healthcare and research contexts. The GAD-7 was developed to overcome issues with traditional anxiety measures, such as taking too long and requiring in-person administration, by streamlining the process with a 7-item self-administered assessment that is quick and easy to administer.

The GAD-7 asks patients to evaluate their level of symptoms over the last two weeks, and can be used to track treatment progress over time. Given the simple language used in the assessment it is appropriate for individuals as young as 14 years. When used as a screening tool, further evaluation is recommended when the score is 10 or greater.

Using the threshold score of 10, the GAD-7 has a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 82% for generalised anxiety disorder. It is moderately good at screening three other common anxiety disorders – panic disorder (sensitivity 74%, specificity 81%), social anxiety disorder (sensitivity 72%, specificity 80%), and post-traumatic stress disorder (sensitivity 66%, specificity 81%) (Kroenke, et al. 2007).

The GAD-7 joins the PHQ-9, DASS, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL), plus many other questionnaires in Erepsonline for measuring mental health symptoms. 

You can now add the GAD-7 to your clinical assessment, and the completion of all Erepsonline prescribed outcome measures will generate a PDF report for review. The questionnaires are automatically scored, with a total score being presented alongside raw responses, trends over time, and other contextual information to help you and your patient understand the results: