Authors: Suzanne Breeman Seonaidh Cotton Shona Fielding Gareth T Jones
Publish Date: 2014/07/27
Volume: 24, Issue: 2, Pages: 391-398
Abstract
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale HADS is widely used in both research and clinical contexts However UK normative data from HADS remain limited In our recent review of the literature only six reports from four studies were identified as reporting UK normative data and all had limitations The aim of our study was to use a large populationbased dataset to address thisThe Epidemiology of Functional Disorders Study is a large longitudinal populationbased study carried out in Northwest England All adults aged between 25 and 65 years registered with three general practices were sent a selfcompletion questionnaire which contained the HADS and other healthrelated instruments Scores were calculated for participants completing all items on each subscale anxiety 6189 participants and depression 6198 participants Scores are presented by gender and by 5year age groups Percentile scores were also generatedOur study is the largest populationbased study providing UK normative data from the HADS While our data confirm some of the normative data reported previously subtle and important differences emerged particularly at the upper end of the percentile scores Due to the nature of our study design and the number of participants sampled we believe that our data are likely to be more representative of the UK population than existing published normative valuesThe authors would like to thank all those involved in the EpiFunD study for their role in collecting the data used in this study particularly the principal investigators Gary Macfarlane University of Aberdeen and John McBeth Keele University and the University of Manchester who allowed use of the EpiFunD dataset The EpiFunD study was funded by Arthritis Research UK formerly the Arthritis Research Campaign Grant Number 17552
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