Instrument reference
Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7)
Free · no permission required (developer statement) Licence statement checked
- Construct measured
- Severity of generalised anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks.
- Category
- Depression and anxiety screening
- Intended population
- Adults; originally validated in primary care.
- Number of items
- 7 items (per the original publication).
- Administration format
- Self-report questionnaire; brief.
- Scoring approach
- Item ratings are summed using the developer's published instructions. This catalogue does not reproduce items or scoring tables.
- Language and population validation
- Official translations on the developer site; confirm validation for the intended Indian language and setting.
Reliability and validity evidence
- Original study reported good reliability and criterion validity for generalised anxiety disorder in primary care. — Spitzer et al. (2006)
- Also used as a general anxiety severity measure; it is less specific for panic, social anxiety and PTSD. — Spitzer et al. (2006)
Interpretation cautions
- Not a diagnosis of any anxiety disorder.
- Cut-offs reflect a trade-off between missed cases and false alarms.
Copyright and licence
Free · no permission required (developer statement)
Distributed with the PHQ family; the developer site states no permission is required to reproduce, translate, display or distribute (as quoted in CamCOPS documentation).
The developer states that no permission is needed to reproduce, translate, display or distribute. Attribution is still good practice.
Official source
PHQ Screeners (developer site) (opens in a new tab)
Rights and evidence last verified: 2026-10-19.