The GAD-7 is a seven-item questionnaire that measures the severity of anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks. It asks how often you have felt nervous or on edge, been unable to stop worrying, worried too much about different things, had trouble relaxing, been so restless it is hard to sit still, become easily annoyed, or felt afraid that something awful might happen. Each answer scores from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day), for a total between 0 and 21. Scores of 5, 10 and 15 indicate mild, moderate and severe anxiety.
Although it was designed around generalized anxiety disorder, the GAD-7 also picks up panic disorder, social anxiety and PTSD reasonably well, so it works as a broad anxiety screen. It is often given alongside the PHQ-9 because depression and anxiety overlap so frequently; about half of people with one condition meet criteria for the other. A score of 10 or above is the usual cutoff for a closer evaluation. Like the PHQ-9, the GAD-7 is a monitoring tool rather than a diagnosis. Its strength is in repeated use: comparing your score at the start of treatment with scores at follow-up visits shows whether an SSRI, therapy or other approach is working. Stedfast Psychiatry uses the GAD-7 at the first visit and at follow-ups so adjustments are based on measured change.