What you need to know
- Google has partnered with The National Alliance on Mental Illness to produce an anxiety survey on Search.
- The survey will pop up when people search anxiety-related terms, offering them a chance to self-assess any symptoms.
- It is not intended to replace conventional diagnosis by a medical professional.
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health issues faced, and one of the many likely to exacerbated by the current pandemic. Google has partnered with The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to build a self-assessment tool in the U.S.
Writing on Google's official blog, Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO of NAMI said:
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization and we're partnering with Google to provide access to mental health resources. Starting today when people in the U.S. search on Google for information about anxiety, we'll provide access to a clinically-validated questionnaire called the GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7). The GAD-7 will show up in the knowledge panel—the box of information that displays key facts when you search for something—and also has medically-validated information about anxiety, including symptoms and common treatments.
The survey is composed of seven questions aimed at showing people how common their symptoms are when juxtaposed against others who completed the same questionnaire. It's not a replacement for a diagnosis by a professional, it's meant to be more of a screening tool for people faced with questions about their mental health, after which the tool will point responders towards resources.
"Anxiety can show up as a wide range of physical and emotional symptoms, and it can take decades for people who first experience symptoms to get treatment. By providing access to authoritative information, and the resources and tools to learn more about anxiety, we hope to empower more people to take action and seek help," Gillson said.
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