Centre for Policy on Ageing



Psychometric properties of the state part of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) in geriatric patients
Author(s)	Karl Kvaal, Knut Laake, Knut Engedal
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 16, no 10, October 2001
Pages	pp 980-986
Keywords	Anxiety ; Evaluation ; Automation ; Psychogeriatric patients ; Cross sectional surveys ; Norway.
Annotation	A conspicuously high score in the state part of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) has been observed in geriatric inpatients who are neither demented nor critically ill. Reasons for this discrepancy were examined in a Norwegian cross-sectional study of 101 geriatric inpatients and 68 healthy controls of similar age, living at home, and recruited through a day centre. The STAI "absence of anxiety" items were scored significantly higher than that for the ten "presence of anxiety" items. Factor analysis produced two correlated factors: "well-being" and "nervousness", and showed that a lack of well-being contributes significantly to the high score on the STAI for geriatric patients. Female controls scored higher than males on both factors, whereas no gender effect was observed for geriatric patients. The STAI sum score is a biased indicator of anxiety in geriatric patients. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-011115208 A
Classmark	ENP: 4C: 3M: LF:E: 3KB: 76N
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