Validation of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) questionnaire in Spanish nursing students

BACKGROUND: Nursing students are at risk of anxiety during their university education. OBJECTIVE: To determine the psychometric characteristics of the General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) questionnaire in a population of university nursing students. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 170 students at the University of Jaen (Spain) in 2022. An online questionnaire was administered that included sociodemographic and student profile variables, the GAD-7 questionnaire, and the Goldberg anxiety subscale. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA), validation with convergence, and reliability analysis using Cronbach’s α were performed. RESULTS: The EFA identified a single component that explained 63.50% of the variance. It was positively correlated with the Goldberg anxiety subscale (r = 0.653; p < 0.001). A statistically significant association was observed with academic year, gender, and having experienced an anxiety crisis (p < 0.005). Internal consistency with Cronbach’s α was 0.903. CONCLUSION: The GAD-7 presents appropriate psychometric characteristics for use in a university population of nursing students. It is capable of detecting symptoms and generalized anxiety disorder, making it a useful and simple tool for detecting anxiety-related problems in this population.