No. HAM-A is specifically designed as a clinician-rated scale requiring structured interview and clinical observation. Self-administration produces invalid results because many items require observable behavioral assessment (e.g., behavior at interview, somatic symptoms requiring clinical interpretation). Use GAD-7 for patient self-report.

No. HAM-A was designed for severity assessment of known anxiety disorders and treatment monitoring — not case-finding or screening. Use GAD-7 (threshold ≥10) for anxiety disorder screening in primary care or other outpatient settings. HAM-A is reserved for those already diagnosed with anxiety disorders.

Psychic anxiety items (1-6) include anxious mood, tension, fears, insomnia, concentration difficulties, and depressed mood. Somatic anxiety items (7-13) include muscular, sensory, cardiovascular, respiratory, GI, genitourinary, and autonomic symptoms. In medically ill patients, elevated somatic items may reflect physical illness rather than anxiety disorder — clinical judgment is essential.

Conventional response criterion is a ≥50% reduction in total HAM-A score from baseline. Remission is typically defined as a total score ≤7 (some studies use ≤10). A clinically meaningful change threshold (MCID) of approximately 7 points separates true improvement from measurement noise.