Geriatric Anxiety Scale: Development and Preliminary Validation of a Long-Term Care Anxiety Assessment Measure

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Anxiety is a significant problem for many individuals in various long-term care (LTC) settings and is often undetected and under-treated. This study examined the psychometric properties of a new quantitative anxiety screening measure specifically designed for use in long-term care settings, the Geriatric Anxiety Scale – Long Term Care Version (GAS-LTC).

Method: Data were collected from LTC residents (N = 66; M age = 84.4 years, range = 59 to 100 years; 74.2% women) who completed the GAS-LTC, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15), and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ).

Results: The GAS-LTC demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .80), and good convergent validity with the GAI (r = .70, p < .01), the GDS-15 (r = .67, p < .01), and the PRMQ (r = .54, p < .01). Internal consistency on the GAS-LTC did not significantly vary between groups with high (α = .75) and low (α = .77) self-reported subjective memory impairment.

Conclusions: The results from this study preliminarily indicate that the GAS-LTC is reliable and valid for use with older adults in LTC settings.

Clinical Implications: Use of the GAS-LTC in LTC settings may help improve detection and treatment for individuals experiencing elevated anxiety in LTC.

KEYWORDS:

• Long term care
• anxiety
• assessment
• older adults
• anxiety screening

Clinical implications

• The GAS-LTC is preliminarily promising as a reliable and valid assessment measure for anxiety symptoms among older adults in long-term care settings, and offers a quick and easy to administer tool for clinicians and researchers working in long-term care settings.

• Using the GAS-LTC as an assessment measure for older adults in long-term care settings may improve the detection of anxiety symptoms in long-term care, leading to improved care for older adults experiencing anxiety in these settings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.