HOW COMMON ARE ANXIETY DISORDERS?

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Anxiety disorders represent the most common type of mental disorder in the United States, and affect more than 20 million Americans. In addition, about 25% of American adults has suffered intense anxiety at some point. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has useful data on anxiety disorders in American adults between the ages of 18 and 54. Here is what the NIMH studies reveal:

1.    About 4 million adult Americans (3.6%) are diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder each year. Many experts believe this disorder is under diagnosed, and estimate the prevalence to be as high as 8-9%.)

2.    Panic disorder affects around 1.7%, or 2.4 million, of American adults. This disorder is much higher in adolescence, and has been estimated any between 3.5% and 9% for this group. Panic disorder tends to peak at 25 years of age. One in three panic sufferers will also develop agoraphobia.

3.    Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects about 2.3%, or 3.3 million, of adults.

4.    Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurred in about 3.6% of the population studied, although other community-based studies have found that 8% of the total adult population will be diagnosed with PTSD at some point in life. Whereas PTSD is twice as common in women as in men, it is notable that about 30% of Vietnam veterans developed PTSD after the war.

5.    Estimates of the prevalence of social phobia are difficult to obtain, as most people with this disorder are not diagnosed or treated unless they come in with an additional anxiety disorder. Still, the NIMH studies revealed that 5.3 million of adults, or 3.7%, are diagnosed with this disorder each year.

6.    Agoraphobia affects 2.2%, or 3.2 million, of American adults.

7.    Specific phobias were found in 4.4%, or 6.3 million, of the population studied.

Anxiety disorders are more common in women than men, and women are twice as often diagnosed with panic disorder, agoraphobia, specific phobias, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder. These findings may be due, in part, to the tendency for women to seek help more readily for mental health problems. Only obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia were found to be equally common in men and women.

Source: The Anxiety Answer Book by Laurie A. Helgoe,PHD, Laura R. Wilhelm,PHD, Martin J. Kommor,MD