COMPUTER-ADMINISTERED VISUAL ANALOG MOOD SCALES - RAPID AND VALID ASSESSMENT OF MOOD IN HIV-POSITIVE INDIVIDUALS

Studies of cognition in patients with the human immunodeficiency virus must take into account the effects of mood. Standardised mood-rating questionnaires are oftentimes consuming and fatiguing for such patient s and so may be omitted from experiments. Visual analogue rating scale s for affective state are rapidly administered and are quite acceptabl e to subjects. In 64 HIV seropositive homosexual or bisexual males, me asures of anxiety and depression derived from two computer-administere d visual analogue scales were compared with anxiety and depression rat ings from the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression. Analogue ratings of anxiety c orrelated .80 with STAI State anxiety and .58 with STAI Trait anxiety measures and analogue ratings of depression correlated .78 with CES-De pression measures. Analogue ratings may differentiate situational anxi ety and depression more effectively and so are valid tools in assessme nt of anxiety and depression in HIV seropositive subjects. These may b e of particular value when limitations of time or patient illness requ ire a rapid assessment of mood variables in neuropsychiatric research.