Hu. Wittchen et P. Boyer, SCREENING FOR ANXIETY DISORDERS - SENSITIVITY AND SPECIFICITY OF THE ANXIETY SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE (ASQ-15), British Journal of Psychiatry, 173, 1998, pp. 10-17
Background The paper describes the rationale, sensitivity and specific
ity of the Anxiety Screening Questionnaire (ASQ), a disorder-specific
screening instrument ibr use in primary care. Method Two hundred and f
ifty subjects sampled from psychiatric, primary care settings and the
community, participated in a test - retest reliability as well as a pr
ocedural validity study using the M-CIDI with DSM - IV algorithms as a
diagnostic yardstick. Results The ASQ was found to be easy to adminis
ter and acceptable and efficient in terms of sensitivity and specifici
ty For generalised anxiety syndromes.The test - retest item reliabilit
y was good to excellent with kappa values of 0.6 or above. As compared
with the validity standard, the DSM - IV/CIDI diagnoses caseness sens
itivity was generally high (above 82%) for ail diagnostic domains cove
red, whereas the specificity was only high for DSM - IV threshold and
subthreshold generalised anxiety disorder. Conclusions These prelimina
ry findings demonstrate the usefulness of this anxiety screening quest
ionnaire, constructed closely following the guidelines of specific dia
gnostic criteria.