Social anxiety disorder in callers to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America

Abstract

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is among the most common anxiety disorders with a lifetime prevalence of up to 16%. Among callers to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), we surveyed 1,000 participants using a 97-item questionnaire to understand the characteristics of participants with SAD and subthreshold SAD (SSAD). Current prevalence rates of SAD (n=295) and SSAD (n=41) were 29.5% and 4.1%, respectively. SAD and SSAD participants were more likely to be younger, single, with less education and lower income than their no axis-I-psychiatric-disorder controls (NAC). In addition, they presented with more psychiatric comorbidity, lifetime numbers of trauma, recent psychotropic use and side effects. Increased medical comorbidity, health service utilization, as well as reduced work productivity were also found, particularly among SAD participants. SSAD participants were comparable to SAD participants for most of the measures with a few exceptions, mainly less psychiatric comorbidity, less medication use for panic attack and social fear, and fewer visits to the health professionals. In conclusion, SAD was highly prevalent among callers to the ADAA. SAD participants were particularly impaired and tended to use the health care system extensively. Although SSAD participants were less impaired than those with SAD, they were disadvantaged in many ways. Early diagnosis and better treatment are urged for reducing costs and improving life. An organization such as ADAA can play a vital role in bringing this about.

Characteristics and predictors of social phobia course in a longitudinal study of primary-care patients

“…For example, studies have found that only one-half of anxiety disorder patients were receiving any treatment, 22 and only one-third of patients received adequate treatment 23 . Primary care settings may be especially relevant because SP has been associated with increased medical comorbidity 24,25, 26 . Moreover, a retrospective study found that medical comorbidity negatively affected SP outcome; 5 this finding needs confirmation by prospective studies.…”

Comparability Between Telephone and Face-to-Face Structured Clinical Interview forDSM-IVin Assessing Social Anxiety Disorder

“…Besides the clear implications for research, confirmation of the suitability of the data obtained by telephone may bring about clinical advance. Previous experience suggests that the method may be adequate, as for instance the survey involving callers to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (Zhang, Ross, & Davidson, 2004). This is of particular importance because greater accuracy in the diagnoses is likely to increase the number of patients receiving adequate treatment for the disorder.…”

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Callers to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America

“…NAC controls, however, had significantly less visits in the same time period. In comparison with other Axis I diagnosis from the ADAA survey, we found that OCD was associated with lower health service use than callers with post-traumatic stress disorder or social anxiety disorder (19,20).…”

“…These rates are higher than those reported by Zhang et al, and Bull and collaborators from samples of subjects experiencing social phobia and depression, respectively (20,21). We do not know if this means that patients with OCD are more sensitive to adverse effects of psychotropic drugs, if they are being treated with unusually high doses or perhaps some other explanation may apply.…”