Assessment of anxiety among Northern Plains Indians

This study is an examination of the reliability and validity of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988) in a sample of NPIs (N = 529). Validity was assessed by comparing BAI scores among 3 different diagnostic categories in a clinical sample (anxiety disorder, mood disorder, and comorbid anxiety/mood disorder diagnostic groups) and a community sample of participants with no self-reported mental health diagnoses. The BAI was also compared with depression, quality of life, and anxiety measures to assess validity. Support toward the validity of the BAI was demonstrated through high correlations with similar measures of anxiety, as well as higher scores among the clinical samples compared to the control sample. The BAI also demonstrated strong internal consistency (α = .95). An exploratory factor analysis indicated the presence of 3 factors: (a) fear, (b) cardiorespiratory, and (c) body instability symptoms. The BAI was unable to accurately differentiate between mood disorder and anxiety disorder groups. Results of this study indicate that the BAI may be a useful instrument in the assessment of anxiety with NPIs; however, the BAI is potentially unsuited to differentiating between mood disorders and anxiety disorders with this population. (PsycINFO Database Record