Having developed structured interviews and self-report instruments to assess the full spectrum of symptomatology related to panic-agoraphobia, mood, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive and eating disorders, we sought to develop a single brief instrument that would tap these conditions in order to obtain a rapid assessment on all five of these spectrum conditions. The GSM-V consists of 54 items grouped into sections exploring the five spectra described above. It was derived from existing data collected in four studies conducted in Italy by using multiple regression models. The 54 items selected explained a significant percentage of variance of the total score of the respective parent spectrum instrument. Each section had excellent internal consistency and good discriminant validity. The GSM-V appears to provide a reliable alternative to the five longer spectrum structured clinical interviews. It is envisaged that the instrument will be most useful as a screening tool to identify clinically significant spectrum conditions in epidemiological studies. Additionally, it could provide a better characterization of patients with a syndromal level Axis I disorder who might require specific treatment strategies targeted to co occurring spectrum conditions.

Scoring

The GSM-V instrument consists of 54 items coded as present or absent for one or more periods of at least 3-5 days through the subject’s lifetime and collapsed into six domains.
See algorithm section, below on this page for how to score the instrument.

Psychometric Properties

Rucci P, Frank E, Fagiolini A, Kupfer DJ, Shear MK, Dell’Osso L, Banti S, Mauri M, Grochocinski VJ, Maser JD, Endicott J, Cassano GB: Development and preliminary testing of the General 5-Spectrum Measure (GSM-V). Depress Anxiety 18:109-117, 2003.

Note: each items is scored as "0" (NO), "1" (YES).
(1) panic-agoraphobia	sum of items 1-9
(2) mood depressed	sum of items 10-18
(3) mood manic	sum of items 19-23
(4) obsessive-compulsive	sum of items 24-32
(5) social anxiety	sum of items 33-43
(6) eating behavior	sum of items 44-54
Total score (sum of domains scores) range 0 - 54 Threshold for total score for any of the instruments: none determined at this time