Psychometric properties and health correlates of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory in Australian community-residing older women.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the psychometric properties and health correlates of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) in a cohort of Australian community-residing older women.

METHOD

Cross-sectional study of a population-based cohort of women aged 60 years and over (N = 286).

RESULTS

The GAI exhibited sound internal consistency and demonstrated good concurrent validity against the state half of the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory and the neuroticism domain of the NEO five-factor inventory. GAI score was significantly associated with self-reported sleep difficulties and perceived memory impairment, but not with age or cognitive function. Women with current DSM-IV Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) had significantly higher GAI scores than women without such a history. In this cohort, the optimal cut-point to detect current GAD was 8/9. Although the GAI was designed to have few somatic items, women with a greater number of general medical problems or who rated their general health as worse had higher GAI scores.

CONCLUSION

The GAI is a new scale designed specifically to measure anxiety in older people. In this Australian cohort of older women, the instrument had sound psychometric properties.