Primary care fails people with anxiety

doi:10.1136/bmj.39153.560833.80

BMJ 2007;334:558 (17 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39153.560833.80

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Primary care fails people with anxiety

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Anxiety disorders are common, disabling, and costly. But sofar they have received only meagre attention from researchersand policy makers. This neglect is particularly serious in primarycare populations, where anxiety disorders tend to go unnoticedand untreated, say commentators from Seattle. The situationis different for depression, although the two mental healthproblems often coexist

Two new screening tools may help. Both ask patients how manydays in the past two weeks they have been bothered by symptomssuch as uncontrolled worry, fear, nervousness, or irritation.The short version has just two items, the longer has seven,so neither should take long. Both were reasonably good at pickingup anxiety disorders in people attending primary care in theUnited States (pp 317-25). They worked best for general anxietydisorder. Overall, nearly one in five primary care patientsin the sample had at least one common anxiety disorder. . . . [Full text of this article]

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