However, subscales that have been used frequently in rheumatology as “stand-alone” measures, such as the anxiety scale of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, are included in this review. In addition, broader measures of psychiatric distress, including the Symptom Checklist-90, the General Health Questionnaire, and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 are not included in this review since they are included elsewhere in this special issue. Specifically, this author excluded measures typically used to evaluate diagnostic criteria or features of specific anxiety disorders, such as panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and others. To maintain brevity, the majority of the measures reviewed here were selected to provide broad coverage of general symptoms of anxiety, and measures were excluded if they are intended to identify or characterize a specific Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) anxiety disorder ( 1). For this review, the author included measures that were 1) measures of general measures of anxiety and severity of anxiety symptoms, 2) administered by self-report, 3) used in rheumatologic populations, and 4) has evidence of adequate psychometric data. This review covers commonly used measures of anxiety.
