Anxiety refers to heightened arousal and apprehension associated with perceived threat, uncertainty, or loss of control. It includes emotional, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components such as worry, tension, avoidance, and increased autonomic activation.
Anxiety is a normal and adaptive response to potential danger, but excessive, persistent, or impairing anxiety may interfere with daily functioning.
A central distinction separates state anxiety, which reflects temporary anxiety in response to a situation, from trait anxiety, which reflects a more stable tendency to experience anxiety across contexts.
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is the classic instrument for assessing state and trait anxiety, widely used in research and clinical practice. ©
The State-Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety (STICSA) refines this distinction by separating cognitive and somatic components of anxiety.
The Trimodal Anxiety Questionnaire (TAQ) assesses cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components of anxiety, reflecting a multidimensional model of anxious responding.
These instruments assess the overall severity of anxiety symptoms and related impairment. They are useful when the goal is broad screening rather than identifying a specific form of anxiety.
The General Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) is one of the most widely used brief screening tools for generalized anxiety symptoms in clinical and general populations.
The Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) provides a brief assessment of anxiety severity and anxiety-related functional impairment across anxiety presentations.
The PROMIS Anxiety assess anxiety-related fear, worry, hyperarousal, and somatic arousal within the PROMIS emotional distress framework.
The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a widely used clinical measure focused strongly on somatic symptoms of anxiety. ©
The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) is a clinician-rated measure of the severity of psychic and somatic anxiety symptoms.
The Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) is an early measure assessing affective and somatic symptoms of anxiety.
The Sheehan Patient-Rated Anxiety Scale (SPRAS) assesses the severity of anxiety-related symptoms.
The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS) is a classical measure of manifest anxiety and is now mostly of historical interest.
The Four Systems Anxiety Questionnaire (FSAQ) assesses anxiety responses across multiple systems, including cognitive, affective, somatic, and behavioral components.
⇒ Measures that assess anxiety together with depression or general distress – such as the HADS, PHQ-4, and DASS – are considered in General Clinical Screening, where anxiety is assessed as part of broader internalizing or general psychological distress.
Child and adolescent anxiety measures use developmentally appropriate formats and often include fears, avoidance, somatic complaints, school-related anxiety, and separation concerns.
The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) provides a multidimensional assessment of anxiety symptoms across domains such as generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety, panic, and school avoidance.
The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-25) assesses symptoms of anxiety disorders and depression in children and adolescents, providing a broader profile of internalizing symptoms.
The Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) assesses anxiety symptoms in children, including separation anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic/agoraphobia, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
The Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS, CMAS) assesses anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents across physiological, worry-related, social, concentration, and defensiveness domains.
Separation anxiety involves excessive fear of separation from significant others and may appear in both children and adults. In adults, it often overlaps with attachment anxiety, abandonment fears, and distress related to loss of emotional security.
The Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire (ASA) measures symptoms of separation anxiety in adulthood, a construct closely linked to attachment processes but primarily conceptualized within a clinical framework.
Worry is a central cognitive component of anxiety, especially generalized anxiety.
The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) assesses persistent, generalized, and difficult-to-control worry.
The Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) assesses the content of worry across several life domains, including relationships, lack of confidence, aimless future, work, and financial concerns.
The Why Worry Scale assesses beliefs about the perceived functions and benefits of worrying, including worry as a way to solve problems, prepare for negative events, or prevent emotional distress.
The Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ) assesses perceived control over anxiety-related events and internal reactions.
The Consequences of Worrying Scale (COWS) assesses beliefs about the positive and negative consequences of worrying, including perceived benefits, emotional costs, and effects on coping and functioning.
The Dark Future Scale assesses negative expectations about the future, focusing on worry, pessimistic anticipation, and perceived likelihood of adverse events.
The Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS, IUS-12, IUS-C) is the most widely used measure of the construct. It assesses cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to uncertain situations, including the tendency to experience uncertainty as distressing, unfair, or unacceptable.
⇒ Cognitive-behavioral models of anxiety and panic emphasize worry, catastrophic interpretations, perceived lack of control, avoidance, and anxiety sensitivity. These processes are discussed further in the Cognitive-Behavioral framework domain.
⇒ Intolerance of uncertainty is closely related to worry and generalized anxiety, but broader measures of uncertainty tolerance, ambiguity, and responses to the unknown are considered in the Uncertainty domain.
Anxiety often appears in social situations, especially when a person expects evaluation, rejection, embarrassment, or negative attention from others.
The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) assesses fear and avoidance across social and performance situations and is widely used in social anxiety research.
The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) assess different aspects of social anxiety, including fear of interaction and fear of being observed.
The Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) assesses avoidance and distress in social situations.
The Brief Social Phobia Scale (BSPS) assesses fear, avoidance, and physiological symptoms associated with social anxiety and social phobia.
The Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) assesses social anxiety symptoms, including fear, avoidance, and physiological discomfort in social or performance situations.
The Social Interaction Self-Statement Test (SISST) assesses positive and negative self-statements that occur during social interactions and are associated with social anxiety.
The State Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SSAQ) assesses momentary feelings of social anxiety, nervousness, and concern about social evaluation in specific situations.
The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE, FNE) measures concern about negative judgment by others.
The Negative Self-Portrayal Scale (NSPS) assesses concerns about appearing negatively to others.
The Fear of Negative Appearance Evaluation Scale (FNAES) assesses fear of being negatively evaluated because of one's physical appearance.
The Appraisal of Social Concerns (ASC) assesses social anxiety-related cognitions, including feared outcomes of social situations such as rejection, visible anxiety symptoms, or loss of control in interaction.
The Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI) assesses music performance anxiety, including anxious anticipation, physiological arousal, fear of negative evaluation, and perceived lack of control in performance situations.
⇒ Related traits such as shyness, social inhibition, rejection sensitivity, and interpersonal reticence are discussed in the Interpersonal Traits domain.
These instruments focus on panic symptoms, agoraphobic avoidance, fear of anxiety-related bodily sensations, and catastrophic interpretations of somatic arousal.
The Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) measures panic-related severity, including panic attacks, anticipatory anxiety, avoidance, and impairment.
The PHQ Panic Screening Questions are a brief panic-disorder screening module from the PHQ, assessing sudden anxiety attacks, unexpected panic, worry about future attacks, and associated physical symptoms.
The Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (PAS) assesses panic disorder and agoraphobic symptoms, including panic attacks, avoidance, anticipatory anxiety, and functional impairment.
The Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire (ACQ) assesses catastrophic thoughts associated with panic and agoraphobia, especially interpretations of bodily sensations.
The Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ) assesses fear of anxiety-related bodily sensations and perceived danger associated with physical symptoms of arousal.
The Agoraphobic Cognitions Scale (ACS) assesses maladaptive thoughts, catastrophic expectations, and cognitive distortions associated with agoraphobic anxiety and panic-related situations.
The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3, ASI) assesses fear of anxiety-related sensations based on beliefs that such sensations may have harmful physical, psychological, or social consequences.
The Anxiety Sensitivity Profile (ASP) assesses fears of anxiety-related sensations across multiple domains, including physical, cognitive, and social concerns.
The Albany Panic and Phobia Questionnaire (APPQ) assesses fear and avoidance associated with panic disorder, agoraphobia, and social anxiety situations.
The Agoraphobic Self-Statements Questionnaire (ASQ) assesses negative self-statements and maladaptive thoughts associated with panic and agoraphobic anxiety.
The Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia (MIA) assesses agoraphobic avoidance and mobility restrictions, including avoidance when alone and when accompanied by a trusted person.
These instruments distinguish panic-related fear from generalized worry or social anxiety. The cognitive and behavioral processes they assess are central to contemporary cognitive-behavioral models of panic and agoraphobia.
Specific fear and phobia measures assess anxiety tied to particular objects, situations, sensations, or environments.
The Fear Questionnaire (FQ) assesses phobic fear, avoidance behavior, and distress across different domains of anxiety-provoking situations.
The Claustrophobia Questionnaire (CLQ) assesses fear of enclosed spaces, including suffocation concerns and restriction-related anxiety.
The Phobic Stimuli Response Scale (PSRS) assesses emotional and behavioral responses to phobic stimuli.
These measures assess anxiety, stress, and acute distress related to viral epidemics, pandemics, infection risk, quarantine, uncertainty, and public health threats.
The Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics (SAVE-9) assesses stress and anxiety responses related to viral epidemics, including fear of infection, worry about consequences, and work-related stress in epidemic contexts.
The COVID-19 Peritraumatic Distress Index (CPDI) assesses psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, including anxiety, depression, fear, somatic symptoms, avoidance, and stress-related reactions.
⇒ Health anxiety, body vigilance, and distress about bodily sensations are closely connected with anxiety but are presented in the Somatic Symptoms domain.
⇒ Attachment. Anxiety often emerges in close relationships through fears of abandonment, rejection, separation, and loss of emotional security.
⇒ Body Image. Some forms of anxiety are centered on physical appearance, body image, and concerns about negative evaluation of one's appearance.
⇒ Cyberpsychology. Modern forms of anxiety may be linked to digital technologies, social media, online communication, and technology use.
⇒ Existential Concerns. Some forms of anxiety center on mortality, meaning, uncertainty, freedom, and existential vulnerability.
⇒ Emotion Regulation. Anxiety is closely related to how individuals monitor, interpret, tolerate, and regulate emotional experiences.
Anxiety is a multidimensional construct involving emotional arousal, threat anticipation, worry, avoidance, somatic activation, and context-specific fears. Different instruments capture these aspects at different levels of specificity.
Broad screeners such as GAD-7, OASIS, and PROMIS Anxiety assess general severity, while more specific measures focus on worry, social anxiety, panic, separation anxiety, health anxiety, or phobic responses. A comprehensive assessment of anxiety often requires combining general severity measures with instruments targeting the specific form of anxiety being examined.