MULTICENTER COLLABORATIVE PANIC DISORDER SEVERITY SCALE

Objective: To address the lack of a simple and standardized instrument to assess overall panic disorder severity, the authors developed a sc ale for the measurement of panic disorder severity. Method: Ten indepe ndent evaluators used the seven-item Panic Disorder Severity Scale to assess 186 patients with principal DSM-III-R diagnoses of panic disord er (with no or mild agoraphobia) who were participating in the Multice nter Collaborative Treatment Study of Panic Disorder. In addition, 89 of these patients were reevaluated with the same scale after short-ter m treatment. A subset of 24 patients underwent two independent assessm ents to establish interrater reliability. Internal consistency, conver gent and discriminant validity, and sensitivity to change were also de termined. Results: The Panic Disorder Severity Scale tons associated w ith excellent interrater reliability, moderate internal consistency, a nd favorable levels of validity and sensitivity to change. Individual items showed goon convergent gent and discriminant validity. Analysis suggested a two-factor model fit the data best. Conclusions: The Panic Disorder Severity Scale is a simple, efficient way for clinicians to rate severity in patients with established diagnoses of panic disorder . However, further research with more diverse groups of panic disorder patients and with a broader range of convergent and discriminant vali dity measures is needed.