Anxiety Disorders: An Overview

Anxiety Disorders Overview

• Involve excessive fear, anxiety, and related behavioral disturbances.
• Fear is an emotional response to a real or perceived imminent threat, such as thoughts of immediate danger or escape behaviors.
• Anxiety is the anticipation of future threat and includes muscle tension, vigilance, and cautious or avoidant behaviors.
• Panic attacks are a particular type of fear response seen within anxiety disorders.
• Anxiety disorders are differentiated by the types of situations that are feared or avoided and the content of associated thoughts or beliefs.
• Transient fear or anxiety is often stress-induced and temporary, while anxiety disorder is persistent, usually for 6 months or more.
• Fear or anxiety is considered excessive or out of proportion to the actual threat.
• The sex ratio for anxiety disorders is approximately 2:1, female to male.
• Panic attacks can be expected as a response to a typically feared object or situation, or unexpected, occurring for no apparent reason.

Specific Anxiety Disorders

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder involves persistent and excessive anxiety and worry about various domains that are difficult to control. It includes physical symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.
• Panic Disorder is defined by recurrent unexpected panic attacks and persistent worry about having more attacks, which may cause maladaptive behaviors.
• Agoraphobia involves fear and anxiety of "unsafe" situations, such as public transportation, open spaces, enclosed places, standing in line, being in a crowd, or being outside home alone. Panic-like symptoms may occur in these situations, and the person may feel that help or escape is unlikely.
• Specific Phobia includes fear, anxiety, or avoidance of circumscribed objects or situations that is out of proportion to the actual risk, such as animals, the natural environment, blood-injection-injury, or other situational triggers.
• Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) involves fear, anxiety, or avoidance of social interactions and situations where scrutiny is possible. This can include the cognitive ideation of being negatively evaluated or offending others.
• Separation Anxiety Disorder involves fear or anxiety about developmentally inappropriate separation from attachment figures; nightmares and physical symptoms may be present.
• Selective Mutism is a consistent failure to speak in social situations, even though the individual speaks in other situations. This can lead to significant consequences on achievement or interfere with social communication and is often diagnosed in addition to social anxiety disorder.

Other Anxiety Disorders

• Substance/Medication-Induced Anxiety Disorder involves anxiety stemming from substance intoxication or withdrawal or exposure to a medication treatment.
• Anxiety Disorder Due to Another Medical Condition includes anxiety symptoms that are a direct pathophysiological consequence of another medical condition.
• Other Specified Anxiety Disorder covers anxiety-like symptoms that cause clinically significant distress or impairment but do not meet full criteria for any specific anxiety disorder. The clinician specifies the reason, such as limited symptom attacks or generalized anxiety not occurring more days than not.