Anxiety Screening (GAD-7)
Clinically validated anxiety screening based on the GAD-7. 7 questions used by healthcare professionals worldwide. Includes score interpretation and support resources.
Question 1 of 7
Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by:
Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge
GAD-7 is a public domain screening tool. This is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
What the GAD-7 Actually Measures
The GAD-7 is a 7-item screener developed by Spitzer, Kroenke and colleagues in 2006 to flag generalised anxiety disorder. It is the questionnaire your GP hands you on a clipboard before an NHS talking-therapies referral, and the same form IAPT services use to track progress between sessions. Each item asks how often a symptom (worry, restlessness, irritability, fear that something awful might happen) has bothered you over the last two weeks, scored 0 to 3.
Total scores run from 0 to 21. The standard cut-offs published in the original validation paper are 5 for mild, 10 for moderate, and 15 for severe anxiety. A 10 is the threshold most clinicians use as a prompt for further assessment. The questions are deliberately blunt because the tool is designed for speed in a 10-minute appointment, not nuance.
What Your Score Means (and What It Doesn't)
A score is a snapshot of the last fortnight, nothing more. Scoring 12 today does not mean you have an anxiety disorder; it means a clinician would want to talk to you. Scoring 3 does not mean you are fine forever; people with chronic but well-managed anxiety often score low between flare-ups. The GAD-7 is a screening instrument, not a diagnostic one.
If your score concerns you, the next step is your GP. In England you can also self-refer to NHS Talking Therapies without a GP appointment via nhs.uk. If you are in immediate crisis, the Samaritans line is 116 123 and is free from any phone. None of this replaces a real conversation with a healthcare professional, and the tool will not tell us anything about you, your data stays in your browser.
Why People Take It Online First
Three patterns come up repeatedly. First: people about to book a GP appointment who want to walk in with a number rather than fumbling for words. Second: people already in therapy who want to track week-on-week change between sessions. Third: friends or family of someone struggling, trying to gauge how worried they should be. All three are reasonable uses, and the form was specifically designed to work outside the consulting room.
The reason it shows up in so many apps and sites is that the GAD-7 is in the public domain. Pfizer released it for unrestricted use in 1999, which is why you will see identical wording on the [PHQ-9 depression screener](/depression-screening-phq9), in NHS apps, and in private therapist intake forms. Same questions, same scoring, same evidence base.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the GAD-7 a diagnosis?
No. It is a screening questionnaire designed to flag people who would benefit from a proper clinical assessment. A diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder requires a trained professional to consider duration of symptoms, level of impairment, and whether anything else (thyroid issues, medication side effects, another mental health condition) explains the picture better.
What score should make me speak to my GP?
The original validation paper suggests 10 as the threshold where further assessment is warranted, and 15 as severe. In practice, if your score is 10 or above, or if any score is causing you distress or affecting daily life, that is worth raising with a GP or self-referring to NHS Talking Therapies. There is no minimum score required to ask for help.
How is this different from a panic attack quiz?
The GAD-7 measures generalised anxiety, the kind that hangs around in the background, worrying about everything from work to family to whether you locked the back door. Panic attacks are acute, time-limited, and often have very specific physical symptoms (racing heart, hyperventilation, sense of doom). They can co-occur, but they are different things and would be assessed separately.
Why are the questions so similar to each other?
The seven items deliberately overlap because the tool was designed to be reliable across short administration times. Asking essentially the same construct (excessive worry) from slightly different angles improves the internal consistency of the score. It is annoying as a respondent but it is what makes the score meaningful.
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