Evaluating Clinical Improvement in Anxious Outpatients: A Comparison of Normal and Treated Neurotic Patients

The emotional distress reported on the 64-item Patient Symptom Checklist by 133 anxious neurotic outpatients participating in a four-week drug trial was compared with that of 135 nonneurotic gynecological patients. Highly significant differences existed between the two patient groups before treatment. At the end of the trial period, those anxious patients who rated themselves as markedly improved had symptom distress levels that were not very different from those of the normal patients.