Sawma Toni, Abd El Nour Pio, Malaeb Diana, Sakr Fouad, Dabbous Mariam, El-Khatib Sami, Fekih-Romdhane Feten, Hallit Souheil, Obeid Sahar
Department of Psychology and Education, School of Arts and Sciences, Lebanese American University, Jbeil, Lebanon.
School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon.
Front Psychol. 2025 Jul 8;16:1582398. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1582398. eCollection 2025.
generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a highly prevalent psychological disorder with a frequent distribution among the general population and in primary care configurations. GAD-5 is one of the many present scales with little research on, but has the potential to orient clinical decisions due to its unique features. Validating a simple and cost-effective tool to assess the GAD in the Arabic-speaking population, primarily residing in the Middle-East and North-Africa (MENA) region, would be highly beneficial. The study aimed to translate GAD-5 into Arabic and evaluate its psychometric properties, including internal reliability, sex invariance, composite reliability, and correlation with a measure of psychological distress.
a total of 629 Arabic-speaking adults were recruited in May 2023. A self-administered anonymous survey was distributed through social media using a Google Forms link. We used the SPSS AMOS software v.28 to conduct the confirmatory factor analysis of the GAD-5 scale.
the fit indices deriving from the confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the one-factor model of the GAD items was acceptable. The convergent validity for this model and the internal consistency of the scale were good. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance was supported across sex. A higher mean anxiety score was seen in females compared to males. Higher GAD-5 scores were significantly associated with higher anxiety, depression and stress as measured by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress 8 items (DASS-8) scale, showing convergent and concurrent validity.
our findings confirmed the briefness, validity and reliability of the Arabic version of the GAD-5 scale which support its employment as a screening tool in the general population. Considering these results, we advise using it for therapeutic and research motives among the Arabic-speaking individuals.
广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）是一种高度流行的心理障碍，在普通人群和初级保健机构中普遍存在。GAD-5是众多现有量表之一，相关研究较少，但因其独特特征有指导临床决策的潜力。验证一种简单且经济有效的工具来评估主要居住在中东和北非（MENA）地区的阿拉伯语人群的GAD，将非常有益。该研究旨在将GAD-5翻译成阿拉伯语并评估其心理测量特性，包括内部信度、性别不变性、组合信度以及与心理困扰测量指标的相关性。
2023年5月共招募了629名讲阿拉伯语的成年人。通过社交媒体使用谷歌表单链接分发了一份自我管理的匿名调查问卷。我们使用SPSS AMOS软件v.28对GAD-5量表进行验证性因素分析。
验证性因素分析得出的拟合指数表明，GAD项目的单因素模型是可接受的。该模型的收敛效度和量表的内部一致性良好。性别间支持构型、度量和标量不变性。女性的平均焦虑得分高于男性。与通过抑郁、焦虑和压力8项量表（DASS-8）测量的更高焦虑、抑郁和压力显著相关，显示出收敛效度和同时效度。
我们的研究结果证实了阿拉伯语版GAD-5量表的简洁性、有效性和可靠性，支持将其用作普通人群的筛查工具。考虑到这些结果，我们建议在讲阿拉伯语的个体中出于治疗和研究目的使用它。
