THE ASSESSMENT OF PANIC USING SELF-REPORT - A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OFVALIDATED INSTRUMENTS

A repertoire of reliable and valid self-report instruments to assess p anic and panic disorder would help both researchers and clinicians. Th is review presents a description and an analysis of the available inst ruments. Following a comprehensive search of the literature, 14 instru ments with published information on reliability and validity were revi ewed. The following information is reported for each instrument: brief description of the instrument and its development, mean and standard deviation for clinical and nonclinical samples, and psychometric prope rties. Four types of instruments are presented: general assessment and information (n = 2), severity of panic disorder (n = 2), body sensati ons (n = 2) and cognitive dimensions of panic (n = 8). Overall, it wou ld seem that panic measures have moderate to excellent psychometric qu alities. However, the comparison between the instruments is difficult because the amount of empirical support available varies widely from o ne instrument to the other. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.