Use of Kellner's Symptom Questionnaire

    Anxiety Disorders (Eifert)
    • Info. request: Outcomes assessment of Anxiety Disorders by Gary W. Schroeder, 2/12/97
      • Anxiety Measures by Barbara Fleming, Ph.D., 2/23/97

    Use of Kellner's Symptom Questionnaire
    by Tracy I. Lanes, RNC, MSN, 4/4/98

    Dr. Barbara Fleming discussed use of general symptom checklists when measuring a clinical population for anxiety. Measures for general symptoms are the SCL-90 and Hopkins Symptom Checklist. Another measure with suitable validity, reliability, and sensitivity is the Symptom Questionnaire (SQ) by Robert Kellner(1987) of the University of New Mexico.

    The SQ is a 92 item yes/no questionnaire with subscales measuring states of depression, anxiety, anger-hostility, and somatic symptoms. It also includes a well-being subscale. The SQ is a revised version of the Symptom-Rating Test, and has been shown to be useful in clinical work.

    In establishing validity, populations studied in the SQ development were patients with upper respiratory tract infections, depressed patients with recent losses, adults with chronic nightmares, psychiatric patients, and bipolar disorder patients. The SQ was also validated with an external chemical criterion where an antianxiety drug and placebo in a double-blind study were evaluated and shown as more sensitive than observer ratings and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety. In another population with anxious psychiatric outpatients, the SQ anxiety scale correlated +.69 with the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, and correlated +.63 with the Hopkins Symptom Checklist.

    Reliability studies were performed with test-retest and split-half reliabilities. In anxious outpatients after 4 weeks, test-retest correlations were significant in the anxiety subscale at +.71. The split-half reliabilities for each half of the anxiety subscale in anxious and depressed neurotic outpatients showed correlations of +.75 to +.95.

    More information about the SQ is published in Kellner,R. (1987). A symptom questionnaire. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 48(7), 268-274.

          • About the Kellner's SQ ! by JOHN C. PAPAIOANNOU, Interpersonal relationships counselor and organizational consultant, 27/07/98, 7/27/98
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