The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale measures the severity of physical and mental anxiety symptoms and evaluates the effectiveness of anti-anxiety medications and therapies. It consists of verbal questions and rates the patient on 14 items, with scores ranging from zero to four. While criticisms have arisen, it is widely used and provides reliable data.
The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale was developed by Max Hamilton, a psychiatrist and statistician, in 1959. This scale measures the extent or severity of physical and mental anxiety symptoms in a person. It also evaluates the impact of anti-anxiety and anti-stress medications and therapies. It is often used during psychiatric treatment as an evaluation before treatment begins and then periodically to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment thereafter. Hamilton also developed the Hamilton Depression Scale, which uses different questions but a similar format to determine levels of depression.
The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale focuses on both psychic anxiety and somatic anxiety, which are the psychological distress and physical problems caused by severe anxiety, respectively. The test is verbal and consists of questions relating to the amount of psychological tension, stress and depression present and related physical ailments. The test administrator, usually a psychiatrist, then rates the patient on 14 items, depending on their answers to the questions. The ratings are numbers and range from zero to four, with zero indicating no anxiety and four indicating extremely crippling anxiety.
Seven of the questions on the test look at mental anxiety and seven look at physical anxiety. The seven topics on mental anxiety are anxious mood, tension, fears, insomnia, intellectual mood, depressed and interview behavior. The seven topics related to physical anxiety are somatic disorders: muscular and somatic disorders: sensory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, autonomic, respiratory, and genitourinary symptoms. These broad topics then include more detailed symptoms which are used to pinpoint problems caused by anxiety in different parts of the body and mind.
The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale is just one of many diagnostic tools used by psychiatrists to diagnose and treat patients. It is used on children and adults of all ages. It is also available online and can be taken as a written test without an interviewer. Some people prefer this option because they feel they don’t run the risk of an intermediary interviewer misinterpreting their answers and misrepresenting their anxiety level during the test.
While the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale is widely in use, criticisms have arisen, most of them relating to the subjectivity of the interviewer during oral tests. Others argue that those with depression but no anxiety would also score high on the test due to the overlap of mental and physical symptoms. However, it has been shown to be very effective in most situations and provides very reliable and consistent data.
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