Keywords

clinical global impression-improvement scale, social anxiety disorder, social phobia, assessment scales

Abstract

Objective: The clinical global impression-improvement scale (CGI-I) is used to monitor treatment outcome in mental disorders. To better understand the properties of the CGI-I scale in social anxiety disorder, effects sizes from the CGI-I scale were compared to comparably calculated effect sizes from other rating scales obtained from double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors in social anxiety disorder. From peer-reviewed, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies evaluating selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in social anxiety disorder, we extracted CGI-I data and scores from other assessment scales of severity and function. Using calculations that enabled direct comparisons, effect sizes for the binarily reported CGI-I scores were compared to effect sizes from the quantitative scales.

Results: Effect sizes for the binary CGI-I scale were statistically indistinguishable from effect sizes obtained from the other scales, with the exception of the social avoidance and distress scale.

Conclusions: The CGI-I scale is an appropriate method of assessing clinical change in trials of social anxiety disorder. Copyright#2008John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2008

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/8706

Publisher

human psychopharmacology

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Psychology

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS