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Background: The Geriatric Anxiety Inventory is a 20-item geriatric-specific measure of anxiety severity. While studies suggest good internal consistency and convergent validity, divergent validity from measures of depression are weak. Clinical cutoffs have been developed that vary across studies due to the small clinical samples used. A six-item short form (GAI-SF) has been developed, and while this scale is promising, the research assessing the psychometrics of this scale is limited., Methods: This study examined the psychometric properties of GAI and GAI-SF in a large sample of 197 clinical geriatric participants with a comorbid anxiety and unipolar mood disorder, and a non-clinical control sample (N = 59)., Results: The internal consistency and convergent validity with other measures of anxiety was adequate for GAI and GAI-SF. Divergent validity from depressive symptoms was good in the clinical sample but weak in the total and non-clinical samples. Divergent validity from cognitive functioning was good in all samples. The one-factor structure was replicated for both measures. Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses indicated that the GAI is more accurate at identifying clinical status than the GAI-SF, although the sensitivity and specificity for the recommended cutoffs was adequate for both measures., Conclusions: Both GAI and GAI-SF show good psychometric properties for identifying geriatric anxiety. The GAI-SF may be a useful alternative screening measure for identifying anxiety in older adults.

Anxious individuals report disproportionately negative expectations concerning the future, termed the negative expectancy bias. In contrast, ageing is associated with an inflated expectancy for positive future events. A recent study [Steinman, S. A., Smyth, F. L., Bucks, R. S., MacLeod, C., & Teachman, B. A. (2013). Anxiety-linked expectancy bias across the adult lifespan. Cognition and Emotion, 27, 345-355. doi:10.1080/02699931.2012.711743] found using an interpretation bias task, a negative expectancy bias in young adults and positive expectancy bias in older adults with high trait anxiety. Extending this, the current study examined expectancy bias for positive, negative and ambiguously emotionally toned information in younger and older adults with clinical levels of depression and anxiety to community control groups, thus allowing examination of both disorder status and age on biases. Clinical participants reported a pervasive tendency to expect negative events relative to positive regardless of whether the current scenarios were positive, negative or ambiguous. Older adults showed greater expectancy for future positive scenarios when the initial scenario was negative or ambiguous. Age moderated the negative expectancy bias shown by clinical participants for ambiguous scenarios. Clinical disorders in older adults attenuated the positive expectancy bias that was otherwise strong in community participants. These findings provide further evidence for age differences in processing of emotionally toned information, with older adults showing a greater expectancy for positive future events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]