Google Search now has an anxiety self-assessment quiz

Google wants to help people identify their anxiety and find resources to address it. The company is adding a new 7-question self-assessment quiz to search results that cover anxiety-related topics. The survey uses the clinically-validated GAD-7 questionnaire.

Directing users to appropriate resources — In a blog post, Google explains that the GAD-7 helps people understand how their self-reported anxiety symptoms map to anxiety levels of other people who have completed the questionnaire. The results page offers suggestions on where people can go to get help managing their anxiety. Because this is Google, of course, the blog post also says that it doesn't collect your answers or share them with anyone.

Google already offers up self-assessments for depression and PTSD in the United States and says it hopes to bring these quizzes to more of the world over time. The quizzes live in Google's Knowledge Panels that appear to the right of search results.

COVID-19 and mental health — One of the side affects of the coronavirus pandemic has been a rise in suicides as people who were already suffering are isolated at home and unable to access resources they previously had, like friends and support groups. In the San Francisco Bay Area, one hospital has reported that it has seen more deaths from suicide since the outbreak began than deaths from COVID-19.

Other tech companies have also been incorporating new tools into their products that help address mental health. Snap, for instance, directs users to mental health resources when they search for related subjects in the app.