A study of anxiety scale applied to patients with anxiety disorder

Lee, Jung Hoon; Park, Byung Tak

Abstract

The authors studied anxiety, using Zung's self-rating anxiety scale (SAS), in the subjects of 127 male and 38 female patients with anxiety disorder. The authors investigated 165 patients in Yeungnam university hospital from January, 1987 to June, 1991. In order to analyze the data on anxiety scores Pearson's product moment coefficient correlation method and factor analysis were carried out by SPSS/PC+ program. The results were as follows: There was significant difference in the mean averages of total anxiety scores among patients with anxiety disorder and male and female college freshmen: patients with anxiety disorder scored 42.40±7.74, male students scored 32.91±5.70, female students scored 34.48±6.00. The anxiety scores relating to the items of body aches & pains, fatigue, anxiousness, panic and urinary frequency were relatively high in patients with anxiety disorder. The anxiety scores on the items of restlessness, apprehension, dyspnea, sweating, and insomnia were relatively low in patients with anxiety disorder. Twenty-nine anxiety disorder group (17.5%) showed significantly high anxiety scores of 50 or over. The inter-rater reliability of Zung's self-rating anxiety scale was 0.71.