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Self-tests / GAD-7

Anxiety test (GAD-7)

The GAD-7 is the seven-question anxiety screener used across primary care. It asks how often each problem has bothered you over the last two weeks and scores 0 to 21.

Items
7
Minutes
2
Sign-up
None

0 of 7 answered

First, roughly how old are you?

Screening scores read differently at different ages. This lets us tell you what your result tends to mean in your decade, and what is worth ruling out first. It is not required. If you give it, only its decade is added to an anonymous daily count, with no identifier.

7 questions, about 2 minutes

Question 1 of 7

Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems?

  1. Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge
  2. Not being able to stop or control worrying
  3. Worrying too much about different things
  4. Trouble relaxing
  5. Being so restless that it is hard to sit still
  6. Becoming easily annoyed or irritable
  7. Feeling afraid, as if something awful might happen

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About the GAD-7

The GAD-7 was developed in a criterion-standard study across 15 US primary care clinics between November 2004 and June 2005. Of 2,740 adults who completed the questionnaire, 965 had a telephone interview with a mental health professional within a week, and the seven-item scale that emerged identified probable generalized anxiety disorder at a cut point with 89 percent sensitivity and 82 percent specificity. Rising scores were strongly associated with functional impairment on all six SF-20 scales and with disability days, and although anxiety and depression symptoms often occurred together, factor analysis confirmed them as distinct. The study also found good agreement between the self-report and interviewer-administered versions.

How this page scores it: it adds your answers into a total of 0 to 21, and reads the result against the bands the source publishes: 0 to 4 is minimal; 5 to 9 is mild; 10 to 14 is moderate; 15 to 21 is severe. Every band's wording on the result page is ours, written from the source's guidance for that range, and a result at or above the follow-up threshold says so in plain words rather than as a color.

Severity bands are the validation study's: 0-4 minimal, 5-9 mild, 10-14 moderate, 15-21 severe. A score of 10 or more is the cutoff the authors recommend for further evaluation. The instrument is reproduced as published and scored the way its published source scores it. A screening questionnaire estimates symptom severity over the last two weeks; only a clinician can diagnose, and scores can be elevated by grief, medical illness or medications.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any time.