Psychometric Properties of the GAD-7 and PROMIS-Anxiety-4a Among Youth with Depression and Suicidality: Results from the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Research Network

Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric comorbidity in youth with depression, with clinically significant anxiety occurring in half of all depressed youth. This combination is usually associated with more severe symptoms creating a need for clinically sound tools for measuring anxiety. This study assessed two such tools: Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale (GAD-7) and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-Anxiety-4a. While both of these scales have been tested in adults and showed promise in adolescent populations, they have been minimally tested in large clinical samples and have not been studied specifically within depressed and/or suicidal youth. Statistical analyses showed that both the GAD-7 and PROMIS-Anxiety-4a had high internal consistency and good test-retest reliability. Additionally, when compared to other well-established measures of anxiety, they showed appropriate convergent and divergent validity. These findings indicate that either of these brief, freely available scales can be used to screen and monitor treatment response in research and clinical settings while working with depressed and suicidal youth.