- Axis I: Clinical disorders, including major mental disorders, and learning disorders
- Axis II: Personality disorders and mental retardation (although developmental disorders, such as Autism, were coded on Axis II in the previous edition, these disorders are now included on Axis I)
- Axis III: Acute medical conditions and physical disorders
- Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental factors contributing to the disorder
- Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning or Children's Global Assessment Scale for children and teens under the age of 18
This is the basic version of the GAF scale:
- 100-91 Superior functioning in a wide range of activities, life's problems never seem to get out of hand, is sought out by others because of his or her many positive qualities. No symptoms.
- 90-81 Absent or minimal symptoms (e.g., mild anxiety before an exam), good functioning in all areas, interested and involved in a wide range of activities, socially effective, generally satisfied with life, no more than everyday problems or concerns (e.g., an occasional argument with family members).
- 80-71 If symptoms are present, they are transient and expectable reactions to psychosocial stressors (e.g., difficulty concentrating after family argument); no more than slight impairment in social, occupational, or school functioning (e.g., temporarily falling behind in schoolwork).
- 70-61 Some mild symptoms (e.g., depressed mood and mild insomnia) OR some difficulty in social, occupational, or school functioning (e.g., occasional truancy, or theft within the household), but generally functioning pretty well, has some meaningful interpersonal relationships.
- 60-51 Moderate symptoms (e.g., flat affect and circumstantial speech, occasional panic attacks) OR moderate difficulty in social, occupational, or school functioning (e.g., few friends, conflicts with peers or co-workers).
- 50-41 Serious symptoms (e.g., suicidal ideation, severe obsessional rituals, frequent shoplifting) OR any serious impairment in social, occupational, or school functioning (e.g., no friends, unable to keep a job).
- 40-31 Some impairment in reality testing or communication (e.g., speech is at times illogical, obscure, or irrelevant) OR major impairment in several areas, such as work or school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood (e.g., depressed man avoids friends, neglects family, and is unable to work; child frequently beats up younger children, is defiant at home, and is failing at school).
- 30-21 Behavior is considerably influenced by delusions or hallucinations OR serious impairment, in communication or judgment (e.g., sometimes incoherent, acts grossly inappropriately, suicidal preoccupation) OR inability to function in almost all areas (e.g., stays in bed all day, no job, home, or friends)
- 20-11 Some danger of hurting self or others (e.g., suicide attempts without clear expectation of death; frequently violent; manic excitement) OR occasionally fails to maintain minimal personal hygiene (e.g., smears feces) OR gross impairment in communication (e.g., largely incoherent or mute).
- 10-1 Persistent danger of severely hurting self or others (e.g., recurrent violence) OR persistent inability to maintain minimal personal hygiene OR serious suicidal act with clear expectation of death.
- 0 Inadequate information.
My solution to the highly subjective current version of the GAF, if it is to continue in clinical use, would be to break it down into four distinct scales, a neurological/physical scale, a psychological scale, a behavioral scale, and an interpersonal scale. This would make the tool broader and more precise for diagnosis and also provide a clearer sense of where dysfunction resides.Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF): properties and frontier of current knowledge
I. H. Monrad Aas
Annals of General Psychiatry 2010, 9:20doi:10.1186/1744-859X-9-20
Published: 7 May 2010 Abstract (provisional)
Background
Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) is well known internationally and widely used for scoring the severity of illness in psychiatry. Problems with GAF show a need for its further development (for example validity and reliability problems). The aim of the present study was to identify gaps in current knowledge about properties of GAF that are of interest for further development. Properties of GAF are defined as characteristic traits or attributes that serve to define GAF (or may have a role to define a future updated GAF).
Methods
A thorough literature search was conducted.
Results
A number of gaps in knowledge about the properties of GAF were identified: for example, the current GAF has a continuous scale, but is a continuous or categorical scale better? Scoring is not performed by setting a mark directly on a visual scale, but could this improve scoring? Would new anchor points, including key words and examples, improve GAF (anchor points for symptoms, functioning, positive mental health, prognosis, improvement of generic properties, exclusion criteria for scoring in 10-point intervals, and anchor points at the endpoints of the scale)? Is a change in the number of anchor points and their distribution over the total scale important? Could better instructions for scoring within 10-point intervals improve scoring? Internationally, both single and dual scales for GAF are used, but what is the advantage of having separate symptom and functioning scales? Symptom (GAF-S) and functioning (GAF-F) scales should score different dimensions and still be correlated, but what is the best combination of definitions for GAF-S and GAF-F? For GAF with more than two scales there is limited empirical testing, but what is gained or lost by using more than two scales?
Conclusions
In the history of GAF, its basic properties have undergone limited changes. Problems with GAF may, in part, be due to lack of a research programme testing the effects of different changes in basic properties. Given the widespread use, research-based development of GAF has not been especially strong. Further research could improve GAF.
The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.
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