The Hamilton Anxiety Scale is one of the most commonly used psychological questionnaires to assess a person’s level of anxiety, so it is not a diagnostic tool, but a useful and highly effective resource for evaluating patient condition, psychosomatic symptoms, fears and cognitive processes.
A fact of this interesting staircase catches our eye: it was designed in 1959 by Max R. Hamilton and it’s still one of the most used.
- This professor of psychiatry and later president of the British Psychological Society thought that not all anxiety disorders were the same.
- I didn’t want to just define another tool to diagnose a disorder.
He sought to define a very rigorous resource to assess the degree of severity of anxiety in a person, also differentiating psychological anxiety from somatic anxiety by its importance in defining people’s ability to control this exhausting reality.
Later, in 1969, Dr. Hamilton wanted to go further and improve the scale, so among the items focused on the evaluation of somatic anxiety he made a distinction between muscular somatic signals and sensory somatic signals.
In this way, and with this degree of refinement when designing a test as close as possible, we already intuitively have an obvious clue about it: each person feels anxiety in a particular way.
No two realities are the same, so the same therapeutic strategies are not for everyone. Tests like the one we are going to detail are very suitable to customize the treatments to the maximum according to the specific needs of each patient.
Hamilton’s anxiety scale is a clinical assessment tool used to measure a person’s anxiety level and is useful for children and adults.
It is also an instrument that can be used by doctors and psychiatrists, but of course it does not determine the diagnosis of a specific disorder (although it can help you).
In addition, there is a problem with this clinical feature that health professionals have already understood. Hamilton’s Anxiety Scale is freely accessible, anyone can download the tool or even take the test online.
Thus, it is common for many people to consult their doctor with the ready diagnosis: “I suffer from severe anxiety”.
It is not appropriate to say that this is the most appropriate, this type of test, like any other type of clinical evaluation, should be performed by specialized professionals, in addition the Hamilton Anxiety Scale has another element where the researcher must evaluate the condition. where the patient performed the test.
That is why it is essential to be rigorous in this regard, as some studies, such as that conducted by psychiatrists Katherine Shear and Vander Bilt, on the Hamilton Anxiety Scale show, the actual interview during the administration of the test is critical to a good diagnosis. .
This instrument consists of 14 elements. Each question has five answer choices, ranging from?Absent, even “very serious. “
A score of 17 or less indicates mild anxiety, a score between 18 and 24 points would already give us an idea of a moderate anxiety state, finally, if we get a score between 24 and 30, it will indicate a state of severe anxiety.
Let’s look at the 14 elements that make up the test below
In conclusion, it is sufficient to highlight one essential aspect. Hamilton’s anxiety scale is an open access resource, but psychiatrists or psychologists are truly qualified to perform evaluation and diagnosis.
Subsequently, depending on the result, one strategy or another will be chosen. Hamilton’s goal in the 1960s was to obtain a reliable profile of each person’s level of anxiety, only from him can we act in the best way, in the most appropriate way.
In such cases, aspects such as the patient’s tone of voice, posture and clarity to understand or not the problems are essential to perform a correct assessment.