Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale - HADS

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 12, 2021

Last Modified: January 17, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)

References

Zigmond AS, Snaith RP. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1983;67:361–370.

Stern, A.F.(2014). The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Occupational Medicine, 64, 393-394. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqu024

Duration

2 minutes

Overview

14 4-point Likert type questions (7 for Depression, 7 for Anxiety)

Instructions

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section Editable Parameters

Scoring

• The 7 Depression items are summed up to create the HADS_DepressionScore
• The 7 Anxiety items are summed up to create the HADS_AnxietyScore

Summary Data

File Name: hads_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
hadsDepressionScore Sum of all depression scores (Range: 0-21)
hadsAnxietyScore Sum of all anxiety scores (Range: 0-21)
Interpretation of total scores
0-7 = Normal
8–10 = Borderline abnormal
11-21 = Abnormal
Raw Scores
Radiobuttons.Q1ra.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q2d.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q3ra.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q4d.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q5ra.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q6rd.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q7a.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q8rd.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q9a.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q10rd.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q11ra.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q12d.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q13ra.Response,
Radiobuttons.Q14d.Response

Raw Data

File Name: hads.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
Scale: 0-3 (anchors different for each question)
R = automatically reversed scored questions (3-0)
a score of 0 represents no Anxiety/no Depression; 3 is the highest score one can achieve
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
pageInstructions The instructions that appear at the top of each surveyPage
quitInstructions The instructions to quit the questionnaire
the quitcommand can be changed under DEFAULTS