0000000001150418
AUTHOR
D. Nutzinger
Self- and observer assessment in anxiolytic drug trials: A comparison of their validity
Self-rating scales are considered to be less useful for comparing different treatments in anxiety patients than observer-rating scales. However, the empirical evidence for this assumption is not adequate. A self-rating inventory of 35 items related to anxiety was perfectly parallel with an observer-rating inventory. Both instruments were used in the Cross National Collaborative Panic Study to compare the efficacy of imipramine, alprazolam and placebo in an 8-week drug trial in a sample of 1168 outpatients. The variance of the self-rating assessments was about two times higher. Both scales were equally sensitive to change; however, the measurement of change by means of the self-rating scale …
The Panic-Associated Symptom Scale: measuring the severity of panic disorder.
The Panic-Associated Symptom Scale (PASS) is presented as a new measurement of the severity of the core symptoms of panic disorder. This first description addresses the rationale for its design and its scoring, score distributions, test-retest reliability, correlations within the PASS and with other scales, principal component structure, and response to drug therapy. Data are presented from a large study group of patients with panic disorder (n = 1168). Problems in measuring panic disorder are discussed.