Templates / Panic and agoraphobia scale: Free PDF template & scoring guide

Mental Health & Therapy

Panic and agoraphobia scale: Free PDF template & scoring guide

Free PDF • 2 pages, print-ready • Clinician-reviewed

Monika Lazarevska Last updated November 4, 2026 Reviewed by Dr. Vanja Kitanova

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The Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (PAS) is a 13-item questionnaire that rates how severe panic disorder is, with or without agoraphobia, over the past week. Psychiatrist Borwin Bandelow developed it, and each item scores 0 to 4, for a total between 0 and 52.

The items fall into five subscales: panic attacks, agoraphobic avoidance, anticipatory anxiety, disability and health concerns. It measures severity and does not diagnose, so practices give it at baseline and at set review points during treatment. A falling total across those reviews is one of the clearest signs that therapy or medication is working.

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Scale

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Printable PDF, 2 pages

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Mental Health & Therapy

Key takeaways

The Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (PAS) has 13 scored items rated 0 to 4, for a total between 0 and 52.

Item U asks whether attacks were expected or spontaneous, and it never counts toward the total.

The scale measures severity and change over time, and it does not diagnose panic disorder on its own.

Self-rated and clinician-rated scores use different bands, so keep one version and one rater for a whole treatment course.

Record the five subscale scores as well as the total, because two equal totals can hide very different symptom patterns.

What is the panic and agoraphobia scale?

The panic and agoraphobia scale is a 13-item rating scale for the severity of panic disorder, with or without agoraphobia. Psychiatrist Borwin Bandelow published it in 1995, and Hogrefe publishes the manual and norms.

It comes in two versions. Patients fill in the self-rated form, while a clinician completes the observer-rated form after an interview. Both cover the same five areas, but each version has its own score bands.

The scale’s strength is that it picks up change. In a 1998 placebo-controlled trial, Broocks and colleagues randomized 46 outpatients with panic disorder to aerobic exercise, clomipramine or placebo. Both active treatments beat placebo, and clomipramine worked sooner and more strongly than exercise.

A 2000 paper by Bandelow and colleagues analyzed the PAS results from that trial. The scale separated the treatments, and its subscale scores showed that exercise worked mainly on anticipatory anxiety and disability.

That makes it a natural way to measure progress during panic disorder treatment, whether the plan is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), medication or both.

Five subscales show which symptoms drive the score

Each scored item belongs to one of five subscales. Two patients with the same total can need very different plans, so the subscale scores matter as much as the sum.

Read the subscales side by side and the next step often becomes clearer. When avoidance stays high while attacks fall, an exposure hierarchy worksheet turns the feared situations from the B items into graded steps.

When anticipatory anxiety leads instead, an anticipatory anxiety worksheet gives the patient structured practice between sessions. The chart below shows how the 52 available points split across the five areas.

How to score it in five steps

Scoring is simple addition once you know which item to leave out. Each of the 13 scored items is rated from 0 to 4, and the total runs from 0 to 52.

1. Score items A1 to C2 from the option the patient ticked. The PDF doesn’t number the options, so they score 0 to 4 from top to bottom.
2. In the PDF, D1 to D3 and E1 to E2 appear as text boxes. Ask the patient to write a number from 0 (none) to 4 (extreme) in each one, using the anchors in the Hogrefe manual.
3. Set item U aside. It records whether attacks were expected or spontaneous, and it never counts toward the total.
4. Check that all 13 scored items have one rating each. Add up each subscale, then add the five subscale scores together for the total.
5. Compare the total with the severity bands in the Hogrefe manual, using the set for the version you gave.

One wording slip in the PDF is worth flagging to patients. C1’s first option reads “No fear or having a panic attack”, which is a typo for “of”. It means no fear of an attack, and it scores 0.

Here’s a worked example. A patient scores 6 on panic attacks, 5 on avoidance, 4 on anticipatory anxiety, 6 on disability and 2 on health concerns. The total is 23 out of 52, and item U stays out of it.

Self-rated and clinician-rated bands are not interchangeable, so never read a self-rated total against clinician cut-offs. A high score signals that treatment needs attention, but it never confirms a diagnosis on its own.

Mixing forms: Keep one version across treatment

A score series only means something if every point was collected the same way. Switch from the self-rated to the clinician-rated form mid-treatment, and a drop may say more about the form than the patient.

In practice, the routine that holds up best is a simple one.

• Give the full scale at intake, before treatment starts, as the baseline.
• Repeat it at fixed review points, such as every few weeks of CBT or after a medication change.
• Rate no more than once a week, because the items ask about the past week.
• Give a final score at discharge, so the record shows the full course of care.

Between reviews, an anxiety tracker lets patients log daily episodes without waiting for the next full scale.

Before you file the score, run this checklist

A minute of checking at the desk saves a confusing trend line later.

• The name and date are filled in, and the date falls in the planned review week.
• All 13 scored items have exactly one rating each.
• Item U is answered but left out of the total.
• The form version, self-rated or clinician-rated, is written on the sheet.
• The rater’s name is recorded if a clinician completed the form.
• The total matches a second count of the five subscale scores.

Common mistakes that skew the total

Most scoring errors come from a handful of habits, and each one is easy to fix once you spot it.

• Adding item U. It inflates every total in the series and can push a score past the 52-point ceiling.
• Switching forms. A self-rated baseline compared with a clinician-rated review tells you little about change.
• Leaving out the rater. When two clinicians see the same patient, the record needs to show who rated each point.
• Recording only the total. A total of 20 can hide very different symptom patterns, so keep the subscale scores too.
• Rating more often than weekly. Overlapping one-week windows count the same attacks twice.

Where it fits next to the PDSS and Beck Anxiety Inventory

Clinicians often weigh the PAS against the Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Each one answers a different question, so pick the tool that matches yours.

Time frames follow the current published forms, so check the edition you use. Choose the PAS when you need subscale scores, the PDSS for a short clinician rating and the BAI for broad anxiety.

What’s in the PDF, and who owns the scale

The template is a single-form layout with space for the name, date, item responses and a total score (all items except item U). It runs to two pages and has no clinician notes field, so keep notes in the patient record.

The scale itself is © Borwin Bandelow, and Hogrefe sells the manual and norms. The Pabau PDF carries no copyright notice of its own, so confirm licensing before any clinical or commercial reuse.

How Pabau scores and tracks PAS results

On paper, PAS sheets tend to end up in a scanned folder, with totals added by hand and trends rebuilt at each review. In Pabau, every result sits in the patient record next to the session notes, so you see each score beside the decision it informed.

You can build the scale once with digital intake forms and send it before the appointment. Measurement tracking then maps each answer to its value, adds up the total on submission and plots it across visits.

Recurring sends can go out weekly, fortnightly or monthly, which keeps review points on schedule without anyone chasing them. It all runs inside Pabau’s therapy practice management platform, alongside scheduling, billing and telehealth.

Score and track PAS results automatically

Pabau scores the Panic and Agoraphobia Scale on submission and charts every total against the patient record. Your team sees progress at each review without adding up scores by hand.

Book a demo

Conclusion

The PAS earns its place when it’s used the same way every time. Pick one version, name the rater, leave item U out of the total and repeat it on a fixed schedule.

Do that, and the numbers start to guide decisions. A stubborn avoidance score can tell you when to step up exposure work, and a flat total can prompt an earlier treatment review. The cost is discipline, because one switched form can make months of data hard to read.

Book a demo to see how Pabau scores the PAS for you and keeps every result in the patient record.

Continue your research

Planning graded exposure for panic? Interoceptive exposure worksheet helps patients practice facing the body sensations that trigger attacks.

Need a clinician-rated anxiety measure too? Hamilton anxiety scales covers the interview-based scale many practices pair with self-reports.

Screening for anxiety at intake? GAD-7 anxiety assessment gives you a quick seven-item screen for generalized anxiety.

Choosing a treatment approach? Panic disorder treatment compares the therapy and medication options the PAS helps you monitor.

Need a structured mental health record? Mental health EMR software covers how therapy practices organize clinical notes and assessments.

Frequently asked questions