The Clinical Anxiety Scale: An Instrument Derived from the Hamilton Anxiety Scale

TLDR

The authors derived new anxiety scales by selecting Hamilton Anxiety Scale items that correlated most strongly with severity and validated them in a separate cohort of 27 patients. The new scales showed stronger correlations with severity than the full HAS, and the six‑item scale was selected as the most suitable Clinical Anxiety Scale.

Abstract

Summary The Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAS) was administered to 51 patients with anxiety neurosis along with an independent criterion of severity. Each item from the HAS was significantly correlated with severity, and those items with the highest correlations were combined to form new anxiety scales. These scales were then used on a new group of 27 patients suffering from anxiety neurosis. All the new scales had better correlations with severity than the full HAS. The six-item scale was selected as being the most suitable to be a new Clinical Anxiety Scale.