Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS)

7 question scale to grade panic disorder severity

About

The Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) is a brief, clinician rating scale that was developed in 1997 with the promise of becoming a standard global rating scale for panic disorder. The PDSS has become a simple, efficient way for clinicians to rate severity and treatment progress in patients with established diagnoses of panic disorder. The PDSS, is modeled after the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale so, it contains items that assess the severity of seven dimensions of panic disorder and associated symptoms: the frequency of panic attacks, distress during panic attacks, anticipatory anxiety, agoraphobic fear and avoidance, interoceptive fear and avoidance, impairment of or interference in work functioning; and impairment of or interference in social functioning.

In the first study of its performance, this scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency and reliability, excellent inter-rater reliability, good discriminant validity and sensitivity to change. A replication study with a new set of patients confirmed its reliability and convergent and discriminant validity, and added information about cut-off scores to discriminate patients with/without current panic disorder and severity. It’s useful for a clinical as it can gauge response and remission of treatment. The scale has gained wide acceptance and has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, with satisfactory reliability and validity, comparable to the original English version.

References

Shear MK, Brown TA, Barlow DH, et al.

American Journal of Psychiatry 1997, 154 (11): 1571-5

Furukawa TA, Katherine shear M, Barlow DH, et al.

Depression and Anxiety 2009, 26 (10): 922-9

Houck PR, Spiegel DA, Shear MK, Rucci P.

Depression and Anxiety 2002, 15 (4): 183-5

The Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) calculator is created by QxMD.

By using this site you acknowledge that you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by our terms of use and privacy policy. All content and tools are for educational use only, are not meant to be a substitute for professional advice and should not be used for medical diagnosis and/or medical treatment.

1. How many panic and limited symptoms attacks did you have during the week?

0/7 completed