RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BECK ANXIETY INVENTORY AND THE HAMILTON ANXIETY RATING-SCALE WITH ANXIOUS OUTPATIENTS

The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) were administered to 367 outpatients with DSM-III/DSM-III-R anxiety disorders. Principal components analyses of the 21-item BAI and 14-item HARS found four BAI components reflecting neurophysiological, subjective, panic, and autonomic self-reported symptoms of anxiety and two HARS components indicating psychic and somatic clinical-ratings of anxiety. Subscales derived by summing the ratings for the items with the highest loadings for each instrument's components had coefficient alphas ....70. The positive correlations of the BAI subscales with the HARS subscales supported the concurrent validities of the BAI subscales. Evidence for the BAI subscales' discriminant validities was also found: The mean BAI subjective, neurophysiological, and panic subscale scores of the patients diagnosed with panic disorders were significantly higher than those for the patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. © 1991.