| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
Self-report measures of anxiety
— are they suitable for older adults? | | Author(s) | R E Dennis, S J A Boddington, N J Funnell |
| Journal title | Aging & Mental Health, vol 11, no 6, November 2007 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis, November 2007 |
| Pages | pp 668-677 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Anxiety ; Screening ; Evaluation ; London. |
| Annotation | Participants were 40 older people with current or previous anxiety symptoms, recruited from secondary mental health teams (MHTs) in South London. They completed four self-report measures of anxiety: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI); State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI); Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). They also received an independent diagnostic assessment and rating of anxiety severity. After a minimum of 4 months, they were re-assessed on all measures. The self-report measures most suited for anxiety screening and assessing severity when compared with the independent assessments were the BAI, the anxiety scale from HADS (HADS-A), and the STAI Trait form (STAI-T). However, participants made an unacceptably high number of errors using the STAI-T, making the BAI and HADS-A the most suitable measures for older people. The VAS performed poorly in both screening and measuring severity. All self-report measures were poor at detecting change as evaluated by independent assessment. There was no single measure that performed adequately in screening, measuring severity and monitoring changes, suggesting that measures may need to be adapted if they are to be used with an older population. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080327217 A |
| Classmark | ENP: 3V: 4C: 82L |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|