Severity of generalized anxiety. ≈ 2 minutes to complete. Free to use.
GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item) is a validated clinical instrument used to assess severity of generalized anxiety. It is most often used for generalised anxiety screening in primary care. The instrument contains 7 items. Typical administration time is ≈ 2 minutes.
Source / attribution: Spitzer RL et al. © Pfizer (use freely without permission)
Generalised anxiety screening in primary care. GAD-7 is part of standard practice in this setting because it provides a structured, replicable assessment that can be tracked over time and compared across patients or visits.
The instrument's primary construct — severity of generalized anxiety — is operationalized through a fixed set of items, each with a defined response format. This standardisation is what allows GAD-7 scores to be compared meaningfully across clinicians, sites, and studies.
Like all screening or assessment instruments, GAD-7 is a structured aid — not a diagnostic test in isolation. Results should be interpreted alongside history, examination, and clinical context. Where a score crosses an actionable threshold, the next step is typically a more detailed clinical evaluation rather than a definitive diagnosis.
Answer all 7 items below to see your GAD-7 score and interpretation.
Each item is scored on a 4-point scale (0–3). Your score updates live as you answer.
All scoring runs in your browser. No data is sent anywhere — close the tab and the answers are gone.
GAD-7 uses simple summation: each item's selected response is converted to a numeric value, and the values are added to produce a total score. Reverse-scored items are inverted before summation.
Scoring notes: Screening tool, not a diagnostic instrument. Educational use only.
The cutoffs below are drawn from the published validation literature. Always interpret in clinical context.
| Score range | Band | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 0–4 | Minimal / none | No anxiety suggested. |
| 5–9 | Mild | Mild anxiety. |
| 10–14 | Moderate | Moderate — needs evaluation. |
| 15–21 | Severe | Severe — active treatment indicated. |
This is an illustrative walkthrough, not a real patient. Follow the same four steps with your own answers — or use the live calculator at the top of this page.
Read each question and choose the response that best fits. Each response has a number next to it — that number is the item's score. The example below uses illustrative answers.
| # | Item | Example response | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge | Several days | 1 |
| 2 | Not being able to stop or control worrying | Several days | 1 |
| 3 | Worrying too much about different things | Several days | 1 |
| 4 | Trouble relaxing | Several days | 1 |
| 5 | Being so restless that it's hard to sit still | Several days | 1 |
| 6 | Becoming easily annoyed or irritable | Several days | 1 |
| 7 | Feeling afraid as if something awful might happen | Several days | 1 |
Add up all the item scores you noted in Step 1.
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 7
Find the row in the interpretation table whose range contains your total:
Total = 7 falls between 5 and 9 → Mild
Mild. Mild anxiety.
A score is one input alongside history and examination. GAD-7 supports clinical judgment — it does not replace it.
Psychometric figures are drawn from the validation literature and may vary across clinical populations and translations.
If GAD-7 doesn't fit your context, related instruments in psychiatry include:
| Scale | Measures | Items | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| BDI-II | Severity of depression | — | ≈ 5 minutes |
| PHQ-9 | Severity of depression | 9 | ≈ 3 minutes |
| ASA Physical Status | Pre-operative health status | 1 | — |
| Barthel Index | Functional independence in ADLs | 10 | — |
| CHA2DS2-VASc | Annual stroke risk in non-valvular atrial fibrillation | 8 | — |
| Child-Pugh | Severity of cirrhosis and prognosis | 5 | — |
| CURB-65 | 30-day mortality in community-acquired pneumonia | 5 | — |
| Glasgow Coma Scale | Level of consciousness after head injury | 3 | — |
GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item) is a validated instrument that assesses severity of generalized anxiety. Its primary clinical use is Generalised anxiety screening in primary care. It takes about 2 minutes to complete, and the 7 items are summed to produce a total score.
GAD-7 typically takes about 2 minutes to administer. The exact duration varies a little depending on whether it is self-administered or completed with a clinician. Its brief format is part of what makes it practical for routine clinical use and for repeat administration when tracking change over time.
GAD-7 contains 7 items. Item scores are summed to produce the total. Scores run from 0 to 21, grouped into 4 interpretation bands from ‘Minimal / none’ up to ‘Severe’.
On the GAD-7 (total score 0–21), scores of 15–21 fall in the ‘Severe’ band — interpreted as: Severe — active treatment indicated. The full ladder is: 0–4 — Minimal / none: No anxiety suggested.; 5–9 — Mild: Mild anxiety.; 10–14 — Moderate: Moderate — needs evaluation.; 15–21 — Severe: Severe — active treatment indicated. A higher score reflects a more severe presentation, and crossing a cutoff is a prompt to step up assessment or care — but these bands are screening thresholds, not diagnoses.
Scores of 0–4 fall in the ‘Minimal / none’ band: No anxiety suggested. A low score is reassuring but does not by itself rule out the underlying condition — if symptoms or clinical suspicion persist, reassess over time or use a complementary evaluation rather than relying on the number alone.
GAD-7 has reported Cronbach's α of 0.92 in validation samples and test–retest reliability of 0.83. Validated for generalised anxiety disorder; also screens reasonably for panic, social anxiety, and PTSD. In practical terms, a Cronbach’s α around 0.92 indicates excellent internal consistency (the items hang together well), and a test–retest reliability of 0.83 means scores are strongly stable when the scale is repeated without real clinical change.
Yes — GAD-7 is in the public domain and free for clinical, educational, and research use without permission. You can use this calculator and the scale itself freely; if you publish results or reproduce the scale, cite the original source paper.
Spitzer RL et al. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166(10):1092-1097. This is the original publication for the GAD-7 — the reference to cite when reporting results.
No. GAD-7 is a structured assessment aid, not a diagnostic test. Its proper role is Generalised anxiety screening in primary care — it standardizes assessment and flags who needs closer evaluation, but the result must be weighed alongside history, examination, and clinical context. When a score conflicts with your clinical impression, clinical judgment takes precedence; treatment decisions should never rest on a screening score alone.
GAD-7 is supported by the following peer-reviewed sources: