ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry

Sec. Anxiety and Stress Disorders

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1565895

Clinical Utility of the GAD-7 for Detecting Generalized Anxiety in Quechua Indigenous People

Provisionally accepted
Nicole CaldichouryNicole Caldichoury1César Quispe-AyalaCésar Quispe-Ayala2Juan-Carlos CoronadoJuan-Carlos Coronado3Luis Mario Castellanos-AlvarengaLuis Mario Castellanos-Alvarenga4David SalazarDavid Salazar5Breiner Morales-AsencioBreiner Morales-Asencio6Daniela Ripoll-CórdobaDaniela Ripoll-Córdoba6Raúl Quincho-ApumaytaRaúl Quincho-Apumayta2Juan Cárdenas-ValverdeJuan Cárdenas-Valverde7Loida CamargoLoida Camargo8Karen Alcos-FloresKaren Alcos-Flores2Eloy Layme-CondoriEloy Layme-Condori7Rosa Villalba-ArbañilRosa Villalba-Arbañil7Cesar CastellanosCesar Castellanos9Pascual A. GargiuloPascual A. Gargiulo10Indalecio Quispe-RodríguezIndalecio Quispe-Rodríguez11Elsa Muñoz-RomeroElsa Muñoz-Romero5Alberto Rivelino Patiño-RiveraAlberto Rivelino Patiño-Rivera12Irina Flores-PomaIrina Flores-Poma7Jorge Herrera-PinoJorge Herrera-Pino13Norman LópezNorman López14,15*
  • 1Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Universidad de Los Lagos, Osorno, Chile
  • 2Universidad Nacional de Huancavelica, Huancavelica, Peru
  • 3Departamento de Procesos Terapéuticos, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Católica de Temuco., Temuco, Chile
  • 4Escuela de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Comunicaciones, Universidad Santo Tomás, Temuco, Chile
  • 5Universidad Nacional Daniel Alcides Carrión, Cerro de Pasco, Peru
  • 6Consorcio Latinoamericano de Investigación, Barranquilla, Colombia
  • 7Universidad César Vallejo, Lima, Peru
  • 8Facultad de Medicina, Departamento Médico, Universidad de Cartagena. Grupo de investigación Neurociencia y Salud Global, Cartagena, Colombia
  • 9Instituto Dominicano para el Estudio de la Salud Integral y la Psicología Aplicada (IDESIP), Santo domingo, Dominican Republic
  • 10Laboratorio de Neurociencias y Psicología Experimental. Área de Farmacología. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
  • 11Universidad Nacional de San Cristóbal Huamanga, Ayacucho, Peru
  • 12Facultad de Educación, Universidad Nacional Intercultural de la Selva Central Juan Santos Atahualpa, La Merced, Chanchamayo, Peru
  • 13College of Medicine, Florida Internacional University, Miami, United States
  • 14Escuela de Kinesiología, Facultad de Salud, Universidad Santo Tomás., Temuco, Chile
  • 15Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Universidad de La Costa, Barranquilla, Colombia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

The detection of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in indigenous populations poses a challenge due to their holistic approach to health, which significantly contrasts with the Western biomedical model. Moreover, conventional assessment tools often overlook cultural particularities, compromising their effectiveness in these contexts. Objective: Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the diagnostic accuracy of the GAD-7 in the Quechua indigenous population of the Peruvian Andes. Method: To address this issue, we conducted a case-control study to evaluate the clinical accuracy of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test (GAD-7) in rural Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. We included 147 GAD patients and 322 controls. The study involved four stages: cultural adaptation of the GAD-7, door-to-door evaluation, blind psychiatric and neuropsychological assessments, and application of the Quechua GAD-7. The adaptation used the Delphi method, focus groups, and bilingual judges. Factor analyses, reliability assessments, and diagnostic utility evaluations were performed. Results: The Quechua GAD-7 showed high content validity (Aiken's V > 0.85), strong internal consistency (α = 0.912, ω = 0.85), and an area under the curve of 0.93. With a cutoff score of 11, it achieved 91.3% sensitivity and 86.1% specificity.Conclusions This is the first study to validate a Western test for GAD in indigenous populations.

Keywords: clinical utility, case-control study, GAD-7 Test, rural indigenous, Quechua

Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 13 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Caldichoury, Quispe-Ayala, Coronado, Castellanos-Alvarenga, Salazar, Morales-Asencio, Ripoll-Córdoba, Quincho-Apumayta, Cárdenas-Valverde, Camargo, Alcos-Flores, Layme-Condori, Villalba-Arbañil, Castellanos, Gargiulo, Quispe-Rodríguez, Muñoz-Romero, Patiño-Rivera, Flores-Poma, Herrera-Pino and López. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Norman López, Escuela de Kinesiología, Facultad de Salud, Universidad Santo Tomás., Temuco, Chile

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material