GAD-7 Anxiety Assessment

GAD-7 Calculator - Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screening Tool

The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) is a validated, widely-used screening questionnaire that assesses anxiety symptom severity and identifies probable generalized anxiety disorder in primary care and specialty settings. This brief seven-item scale asks patients to rate how often they have been bothered by anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks, including feeling nervous or on edge, inability to stop worrying, worrying excessively, trouble relaxing, restlessness, irritability, and fear that something awful might happen. Each item is scored from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day), generating total scores ranging from 0 to 21 that indicate anxiety severity: minimal (0-4), mild (5-9), moderate (10-14), and severe (15-21) anxiety. The GAD-7 demonstrates excellent reliability and validity for detecting not only generalized anxiety disorder but also panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder with good sensitivity. Healthcare providers use this tool for routine anxiety screening, monitoring treatment response to therapy or medications, and making evidence-based decisions about treatment intensity and referral needs. The GAD-7's brevity and ease of administration make it practical for busy clinical settings while providing standardized, reproducible measurements that facilitate communication among providers and track patient progress over time.