Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC) Practice Exam

What tool does Aaron Beck use to assess anxiety severity in patients?

1. Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale

2. Beck Anxiety Inventory

3. Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7)

4. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory

The correct answer is: Beck Anxiety Inventory

The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a self-report questionnaire developed by Aaron Beck specifically to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms in individuals. It comprises a series of questions reflecting various physiological and psychological symptoms associated with anxiety, allowing for a comprehensive evaluation of a person's anxiety levels. Beck's approach emphasizes the individual’s subjective experience of anxiety, providing valuable insight into how anxiety affects their daily functioning. This tool is particularly useful because it was designed with the cognitive-behavioral framework in mind, which aligns with Beck's therapeutic practices. The BAI has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of anxiety, making it a go-to instrument for clinicians assessing anxiety severity, which is why it is recognized as the correct answer in this context. Other tools listed have different focuses or were developed by different authors, serving different purposes in the assessment of anxiety. For example, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale is clinician-administered and often used for more generalized anxiety assessment, while the GAD-7 is specifically designed to screen for generalized anxiety disorder. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory distinguishes between anxiety as a temporary state and a more general personality trait and was not developed by Beck. Thus, while all these tools are valuable in their own right, the Beck