Which Anxiety Scale
is Your Best Fit?
It is difficult to pick which anxiety scale is the best for you to complete – that would be best left to a professional. Luckily this site provides the best anxiety disorder tests, including the Beck anxiety inventory.
So, in the meantime, you might want to choose an anxiety self test or anxiety disorder quiz from the list below to help evaluate your own symptoms. An anxiety scale is used to measure the extent to which anxiety is affecting your life. There are three main scales which are in use today, all designed by well respected doctors known for completing in-depth research into anxiety disorders:
Beck Anxiety Inventory
Hamilton Anxiety Scale
Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale
The Beck and Hamilton anxiety scales are designed to measure the effects of general anxiety while the Liebowitz scale is used specifically to measure the presence of anxiety in social settings. All three are designed as simple tests which result in a score the delivers a diagnosis of mild to severe anxiety. If you feel extremely anxious or fearful in social situations or in personal interactions then it is a good idea to take the Liebowitz anxiety scale to see if you are likely suffering from social anxiety or a social phobia. Often, social phobias go hand-in-hand with a generalized anxiety disorder that makes you uneasy in non-social situations as well so it is a good idea to take the Beck or Hamilton scale as well. There is considerable debate about whether the Hamilton or Beck scale is the better option, but the difference really comes down to how the tests are set up. The Hamilton scale offers a set of 14 questions that measure how intense different physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety are for a person. Each question is answered on a scale going from 0 meaning that symptom is never experienced to 4 which indicates an extreme presence of the symptom. At the end all of the scores are added up to determine if you are suffering from mild, moderate, or severe anxiety. The Hamilton anxiety scale was designed for use by health professionals and covers symptoms from fears and intellectual complications to the patient's demeanor at the time of the test. It was intended for a doctor to assess each of the 14 areas in question and determine to what extent their patient is suffering.The Beck scale is a bit different and is easier for you to give to yourself. There are no questions asking about your demeanor or presence at the time of the evaluation and all answers are based on your own firsthand experiences. Rather than a series of questions, this scale is made up of a list of symptoms that are commonly produced by anxiety. You are supposed to think over the course of the past week and rate each symptom according to how much it bothered you. There are numerical answers corresponding to none, mild, moderate, and severe. While both the Beck and Hamilton scales will serve as a great starting point to assess the extent of your anxiety, the Beck scale is a bit easier to understand if you are testing yourself. All of the symptoms on the list are very clear and easy to understand so you know you are answering correctly. The Hamilton scale includes some questions which can be a bit harder to answer. Any of these tests can be taken online to help you determine whether you need to seek professional treatment for anxiety disorders or not. You can always print out your results and take it in to your doctor to help them understand what symptoms you are experiencing.
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