Take the Anxiety Disorder Test Professionals Use

An anxiety disorder test can put your symptoms onto a scale for you. Many people decide to take anxiety tests or an anxiety disorder quiz online to look at their symptoms objectively.

While I recommend seeing a doctor if you feel you are suffering any sort of anxiety disorder, taking an anxiety disorder test or anxiety scale such as the Hamilton Anxiety Scale is a good way to evaluate your own symptoms.

Anxiety can be defined as a physiological and psychological state expressed in physical, behavioral and emotional ways. These expressive components create a feeling of unease, fear, apprehension and worry brought out in moody conditions without identifiable reasons. The condition can occur either as a temporary state or as a long-term continuing trait.

This point is interesting if you are currently looking for work: Institutions such as those in education, health, justice and public service have their clients go through an anxiety test as a basic medical measure. The statistics of people suffering from anxiety disorders are quite startling. Psychologists therefore highly recommend frequent takings of an anxiety disorder test especially for people suspected to be suffering from the same.

One of the more commonly used anxiety tests by professionals is the Hamilton Anxiety Scale. Abbreviated as HAMA or HAS, it is made up of 14 distinct items each of which is identifiable through symptoms. As an anxiety disorder test, it provides a general framework regarding the scoring and administration of the scale. Each scoring item has five points, from 0 to 4.

The Hamilton Anxiety Scale is used for two main purposes: understanding the severity of existing symptoms and assessing the impact of treatment therapy and medication. It is a standardized measure in evaluating the success or otherwise of psychotropic drugs and can therefore be administered before or/and after treatment and is thus considered part of medication dosage.

The 14-item scale was developed in 1959 by Max Hamilton and provides an easily understandable measure of psychic, mental, somatic and psychological anxieties. His technique in developing the scale was to use statistical factor analysis in order to generate scores for anxiety related symptoms, differentiating between somatic and psychic anxieties. In this sense therefore, it does not distinguish between depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms, as people with depressive symptoms score highly on the HAMA.

Another criticism of HAMA is how subjective it is. As an interviewer administered test, the scoring and interpretation of the results can get quite subjective and biased. This notwithstanding, the 14-item five point scaling system provides a broad way on which to assess the interviewee and subjectivity will be minimal due to the high number of items looked into.

The 14 items on the scale are divided equally into two: those addressing psychic disorders and those addressing somatic anxiety disorders. For example, the fourth item addresses insomnia issues, the sixth item assesses depression moods, the eighth item assesses sensory issues specifically touching on vision, heat flushes and pricking sensations. The 0-4 values indicate severity ranges: a 0 score on a particular item indicates no anxiety, a 3 indicates severe and a four gross anxiety.

HAMA is widely used by professionals and studies have shown a high level of reliability and consistency in assessing the symptoms. Well-respected schools of thought have also supported it making it stand right on top of the best anxiety disorder tests.

On a different note, I find it amazing that there are so many of these anxiety disorder tests out there. The tests are a great way to shed some light on a situation which has most likely been extremely scary and stressful for you.

If you're feeling anxious all the time, then it's time for some self-examination. I was so relieved when I found out that the way I was feeling wasn't normal and it had a name. Anxiety disorder.

Under the care of a psychiatrist, I was treated for anxiety disorder without drugs. I also came to realize that this anxious energy was trying to tell me something. All my life I was branded as 'sensitive', and once I started to get my anxious energy under control (well more like channeled), I began to see connections between anxiety/panic/nervous disorders and my budding psychic ability.

I began to see, read and heal auras. That was almost 10 years ago. I don't suffer from anxiety disorder anymore.

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