Glasgow Anxiety Scale for people with an Intellectual Disability (GAS-ID): development and psychometric properties of a new measure for use with people with mild intellectual disability.
The GAS-ID is a fast, reliable way for adults with mild ID to self-report anxiety.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a new anxiety ruler for adults with mild intellectual disability.
They called it the Glasgow Anxiety Scale (GAS-ID).
It has 27 short questions and takes about five minutes to finish.
What they found
The scale worked well again and again.
It gave steady scores when people took it twice.
It also told anxious and calm groups apart.
How this fits with other research
Lecavalier et al. (2006) looked at many Likert scales for ID. They say pictures and pre-tests are a must. The GAS-ID follows that recipe.
Madden et al. (2003) made the ADAMS the same year. ADAMS covers mood and depression too, so GAS-ID zooms in on anxiety only.
McLennan et al. (2008) later adapted the Hospital Anxiety Scale for ID. Their factor scores were messy, while GAS-ID keeps a clean one-factor shape.
Why it matters
You now have a quick, free tool that adults with mild ID can answer by themselves. Use it to spot anxiety before it blocks learning or daily life. Pair it with pictures or simple read-aloud if needed, just as L et al. suggest.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Self-rating scales are widely used in general adult practice; however, there is no reliable and valid method for assessing state anxiety in people with intellectual disability (ID). The present study describes the development and psychometric evaluation of a new scale, the Glasgow Anxiety Scale for People with an Intellectual Disability (GAS-ID). METHODS: First, an item pool was generated from focus groups, a review of the literature and clinician feedback. Secondly, a draft scale was administered to 19 anxious and 16 non-anxious people with ID for further validation and appraisal of reliability. Thirdly, the scale was completed by 19 anxious, non-ID people for cross-validation with the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Finally, physiological concomitants were validated by pulse-oximetry. RESULTS: The 27-item GAS-ID discriminated anxious from non-anxious participants, had good test-retest reliability (r = 0.95) and internal consistency (alpha = 0.96), and was reasonably correlated with the BAI (rho = 0.75). The correlation between the physiological subscale of the GAS-ID and changes in pulse rate was moderately significant (rho = 0.52). CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study suggests that the GAS-ID offers a psychometrically robust and practical (5-10 min) approach to the appraisal of anxiety in this population.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2003 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003.00457.x