Anxiety in Older Veterans

The Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS) (Segal et al., 2010) is a 30-item measure of somatic, cognitive, and affective symptoms of anxiety. The first 25 items of the measure are used to compute the total score; the last 5 items provide information about the content of worries or fears. Participants provide severity ratings for items using on a four-point Likert-type scale. Scores range from 0 to 75; higher scores indicate more severe anxiety.

The Activity Card Sort (ACS; Baum & Edwards, 2001) contains 80 photographs that depict the performance of instrumental activities, low-physical-demand leisure activities, high-physical-demand leisure activities, and social activities. This measure will be used to assess engagement in activities. A lifestyle adjusted performance score was calculated on this measure. Scores show of the total activities ever performed in one's life, what percentage are currently performed (0% to 100%). Lower percentages would suggest that individuals are no longer performing activities that they used to do.

The Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS) (Segal et al., 2010) is a 30-item measure of somatic, cognitive, and affective symptoms of anxiety. The first 25 items of the measure are used to compute the total score; the last 5 items provide information about the content of worries or fears. Participants provide severity ratings for items using on a four-point Likert-type scale. Scores range from 0 to 75; higher scores indicate more severe anxiety. This outcome will be used to examine the effects of the 4 week BREATHE treatment.

The Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A), a clinician-administered rating scale, assesses the severity of anxiety using 14-items rated on a five-point scale ranging from 0 to 4. It has adequate internal consistency, high inter-rater reliability, and good-to-adequate concurrent validity. The Structured Interview Guide for Hamilton Anxiety Scale provides descriptive anchors to guide clinician decision making ratings based on both frequency and severity. Scores range from 0 to 56 with higher scores indicative of more severe anxiety.

The Veterans Research and Development Corporation (RAND) 12-Item Health Survey (VR-12) is a 12-item measure that assesses mental and physical health and functioning. It is validated for use with Veterans. The measure includes subjective ratings of one's health and assessments of functioning for the past four weeks. We used the mental health functioning component of the VR-12. The VR-12 scores are standardized using a T-score metric with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. Scores range from 0 (worst possible outcome) to 100 (best possible outcome).

The Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ) (Rapee et al., 1996) is a 30-item self-report measure assessing one's perceived ability to control anxiety-evoking situations and emotional reactions to these situations. Each item is scored using a Likert-type scale with values ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Total scores range from 0 to 150. Higher scores indicate greater perceived control over one's anxiety. This measure assess aspects of avoidance and was included to examine whether BREATHE has an effect on perceived anxiety control compared with the psychoeducation control condition. This questionnaire asks participants to indicate how typical each statement is of themselves.

The Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item (PHQ-9) is a 9-item depression assessment rated on a four-point Likert-type scale with scores ranging from 0 to 27. Higher scores indicate more severe depression. It includes one item that inquires about suicide ideation. Validity and reliability have been established with primary care patients.

The Cumulative Illness Rating Scale for Geriatrics (CIRS-G) was selected to measure comorbidity. The CIRS-G assesses severity of conditions important to older adults' functional status and well-being, such as arthritis, that are impairing yet not fatal. Raters will examine the severity of 14 medical problem categories. Categories include the severity of present illness and the consideration of past medical history. Each of 14 categories are rated on a scale from 0 to 4. Total scores range from 0 to 56 with higher scores. The severity scores reported here represent the total score divided by the total number of categories endorsed. Higher scores indicate more severe illness. This construct of comorbidity is being examined as a potential moderator of treatment outcomes in exploratory analyses.