The Beck Anxiety Inventory
Throughout our lives we will all have to cope with a certain
amount of stress and anxiety. It is how well we learn to
handle the anxiety that can make the difference in how are
lives are affected by it. Being able to get an accurate
measurement of how severe our level of anxiety can be
difficult. Anxiety levels can be affected by so many
things at any given moment, both from inside our minds and from
external stimulus. To help the therapist or patient gain
a better understanding of the level of their anxiety, Dr Aaron
Beck developed the Beck Anxiety Inventory.
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here to read more about the Linden Method
The test consists of 21 questions that are designed to let the
patient express how they are feeling at the time they take the
test and their overall feelings about their anxieties.
The reason for having the patient answer the questions is that
there is no risk of the answers being skewed by the opinions of
the therapist, as there is in other methods of testing.
The questions ask the patient to describe their feelings in the
last week and cover a range of emotional and physical
feelings. Each question must be rated by the patient
based on a scale of 0-3. The ratings are 0 – not at all,
1 – mildly as in it did not bother me very much, 2- moderately
meaning that while it was unpleasant, it was not unbearable and
3 – severely, standing for I could barely stand it at all.
Questions cover physical feeling like shortness of breath and
rapid heartbeat. They also cover emotional feelings such as the
fear of losing control or nervousness.  By adding up the scores at the end of the
test, the therapist can gain some insight into the
patient’s level of anxiety over the previous week.
If the patient scores below 21 , this shows that
their overall anxiety levels are low. This can
indicate one of two things, either they are normal and
coping well with normal anxiety or that they are not being
realistic in their self assessment. If their
score is between 21 and 35, they have a moderate level of
anxiety. This means that there is some cause for
concern and that something is definitely bothering
them. It may be a specific trigger or event that
they need to address and they should look for the root
cause so that they can resolve the problem and lower their
stress levels. If the patient scores 36 or more,
this means that they are exhibiting severe anxiety
symptoms and this is a cause for concern which may call
for professional help and treatment to help reduce their
levels of anxiety.
The Beck anxiety inventory has been designed to work with all
age groups and if the person is very young or illiterate can be
given orally with reasonable results. The test only takes
most patients 5 to 10 minutes to complete and has become the
third most popular anxiety rating test used by therapists as an
assessment tool to help categorize their patients.
Many therapists use this test as a way to discriminate true
anxiety from depression in their patients. This can then
assist them in making appropriate suggestions when it comes to
treatment. Understanding where the problem lies is
the first step in helping you to begin to once again lead a
normal life free of the symptoms of the anxiety.
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