The Sheehan Disability Scale, available in Portable Document Format (PDF), is a concise instrument designed to measure the extent to which symptoms of anxiety or depression interfere with an individual’s functioning in three major life domains: work/school, social life, and family life/home responsibilities. A PDF version facilitates easy distribution, completion, and storage of the assessment. For instance, a clinician might use the scale to quantify the impact of a patient’s generalized anxiety disorder on their ability to perform their job duties or maintain healthy relationships with family members.
This self-report questionnaire offers several advantages in clinical practice and research settings. Its brevity allows for quick administration, minimizing the burden on both patients and clinicians. The resulting scores provide a quantifiable measure of functional impairment, aiding in treatment planning, monitoring progress, and assessing the effectiveness of interventions. Historically, such scales have been instrumental in standardizing the evaluation of treatment outcomes in clinical trials and providing valuable data for epidemiological studies examining the prevalence and impact of mental health conditions.
