Assessment of Anxiety and OCD: The Case of Emily
The prompt says self-report and clinician observation are not always reliable, which is why it asks you to find a scale. Choosing the right one for the diagnosis is the graded step.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 16, 2026
A diagnosis, a scale you found, and a justification for both
The prompt states its own rationale in the first line: a client's description and a clinician's observation are not always reliable for anxiety, which is why measurement helps. That framing tells you the post has two connected halves rather than one. First, a diagnosis for Emily using DSM-5 criteria — and the discipline here is applying the criteria to the case material rather than pattern-matching to a label. DSM-5 separates obsessive-compulsive and related disorders from the anxiety disorders, which is a change worth acknowledging, and the differential inside that space is real: generalised anxiety with its uncontrollable worry across domains, panic disorder with discrete attacks and anticipatory fear, social anxiety with its specific evaluative trigger, and OCD with obsessions and the compulsions performed to neutralise them. Say which criteria Emily meets and, just as usefully, which she does not. Emily's own account is the starting point and the prompt has already told you not to treat it as the whole picture.
Then find a scale, and the word evidence-based means you have to be able to say something about its psychometrics. Report what it measures, how it is administered and scored, what its reliability and validity evidence looks like, and where it was validated — because a measure developed on a college sample may behave differently in the population Emily belongs to. Match the scale to the diagnosis: a severity measure such as the Yale-Brown scale is designed for obsessive-compulsive symptoms, while generalised anxiety measures are built for a different construct, and using one for the other is the mistake the assignment is set up to expose. Then say what the scale adds beyond the interview. The honest answer is usually severity quantification and a repeatable baseline for tracking response — not diagnosis, since almost no scale diagnoses on its own, and claiming otherwise is the misunderstanding worth avoiding.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Apply DSM-5 criteria to case material rather than pattern-matching.
- 02Distinguish the anxiety disorders from obsessive-compulsive and related disorders.
- 03Evaluate an assessment scale on its psychometric evidence.
- 04State what a scale adds beyond clinical interview.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01A clinical diagnosis with the DSM-5 criteria Emily meets.
- 02Criteria she does not meet, where relevant to the differential.
- 03An evidence-based assessment scale, located independently.
- 04Reliability and validity evidence for that scale.
- 05Reasoning connecting the scale to the diagnosis.
DSM-5 criteria, then the instrument, then the rationale
The case material
Summarise the presenting features relevant to diagnosis.
Working the DSM-5 criteria
Match presentation to criteria, including duration and impairment.
The differential
Name the competing diagnoses and why each is less likely.
The scale you found
Describe the instrument, its administration and its scoring.
Psychometric evidence
Report reliability, validity and validation population.
What it adds
Say what the scale contributes beyond the interview.
Searching for an evidence-based assessment scale
Recommended databases
- PsycINFO
- PubMed Central
- National Institute of Mental Health
- The assigned Olatunji, Cisler and Tolin article
Search sequence
- 1.Read the DSM-5 chapters the prompt names before diagnosing.
- 2.Search for validated severity scales for the specific disorder you diagnosed.
- 3.Check the validation sample of any scale before recommending it.
- 4.Find one source on the limits of self-report in anxiety assessment.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Anxiety Disorders
National Institute of Mental Health · 2024
Diagnostic overview of the anxiety disorders and their differentiation.
- 02
Short-Term Psychodynamic Therapy of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics · 2026
A randomised trial in obsessive-compulsive disorder, with the outcome measures it used.
- 03
CAT-PD and MMPI-3 Validity Scales Detect Simulated Overreporting and Underreporting
Assessment · 2025
How validity scales detect over- and under-reporting — directly relevant to the prompt's premise.
- 04
MMPI-2-RF Validity Scales Add Utility for Predicting Treatment Engagement During Partial Psychiatric Hospitalization
Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings · 2024
Validity scales adding predictive utility beyond clinical impression.
- 05
Major Depressive Disorder
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf · 2023
Comorbid depression, which changes both the diagnosis and the scale you would choose.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Naming a diagnosis without walking the criteria.
- Choosing a scale that measures a different construct from the diagnosis.
- Describing a scale with no psychometric evidence at all.
- Implying the scale makes the diagnosis rather than measuring severity.
Submission checklist
- Are the criteria applied to Emily's specific presentation?
- Does the scale measure the construct you diagnosed?
- Have you reported reliability or validity evidence?
- Is it clear what the scale adds that the interview does not?
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.