Psychometric properties of worry and anxiety measures in a sample of african american and caucasian older adults

Abstract

Objective: The aim of our study was to examine the psychometric properties of commonly used anxiety and worry assessment measures in a community-based, low-income sample of African American and Caucasian older adults.

Method: African American and Caucasian participants from three community-based clinical trials testing treatments for late-life worry/anxiety were pooled to examine the factor structure, internal consistency reliability, and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire-Abbreviated (PSWQ-A), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) and Geriatric Anxiety Inventory-short form (GAI-SF).

Results: All three measures demonstrated an adequate fit to a one-factor structure. Internal consistency reliability was adequate for the PSWQ-A and GAD-7 in the total sample and racial subgroups but was acceptable for the GAI-SF only in the African American subgroup. The PSWQ-A and GAD-7 demonstrated good convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. The GAI-SF has adequate convergent and divergent validity in the African American subgroup.

Conclusion: Our study offers preliminary evidence for use of the PSWQ-A and GAD-7 for assessment of anxiety in a sample of low-income, predominantly African American participants. These measures may facilitate identification of anxiety symptoms, which are often overlooked in this population. More research is needed to examine the accuracy of these measures in other racial/ethnic groups.

Keywords:

• PSWQ-A
• GAD-7
• psychometric properties
• African Americans
• low-income

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this article was funded through the Retirement Research Foundation (Grant #2011-276), the Archstone Foundation (Grant #12-04-31), and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (1AD-1310-06824) to Melinda S. Stanley and partly with the use of resources and facilities at the Houston VA HSR&D Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (CIN13-413). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. government or Baylor College of Medicine.