High HAM-A-Detected Prevalence of Anxiety in Parkinson's Disease, but No Correlation with Severity of Motor Disease.

BACKGROUND: In Parkinson's disease (PD), non-motor symptoms especially anxiety represent a significant and underappreciated burden. Despite the lack of particular validation in this demographic, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) is widely used in clinical and research contexts. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 200 Parkinson's disease patients (mean age 62.77 ± 8.32 years; 118 men and 82 females) was conducted. The Hoehn & Yahr (H&Y) scale was used to grade motor severity, whereas the HAM-A was used to measure anxiety. RESULTS: Of the patients, 52.5% of people (n = 105; mean score 13.85 ± 6.09) had anxiety (HAM-A ≥ 14). Age (r = 0.032; p = 0.657), disease duration (r = 0.115; p = 0.105), H&Y stage (r = -0.073; p = 0.305), and sex (p = 0.856) did not significantly correlate with the HAM-A score. CONCLUSION: Although the HAM-A shows a high incidence of anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD), its consistent lack of connection with clinical illness markers raises serious concerns about construct validity, which are probably caused by somatic item overlap. It is best to use disease-specific tools like the GAD-7 or Parkinson Anxiety Scale (PAS).