37,38 This can be equivalent to, or even greater than, those Selleckchem AEB071 assoelated with other chronic physical or mental disorders.39 While chronic worrying and the physical effects of chronic tension are the principal features of GAD, patients with this condition primarily present to their GP with somatic, pain, or sleeping complaints, rather than anxiety or worry.40 This well known phenomenon of somatization has also been found in many cases with depression and has been held responsible for low recognition of mental disorders

in primary care.30,41 The most commonly occurring somatic complaints are insomnia, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical chest pain, and abdominal pain,13 and patients frequently undergo extensive and costly diagnostic procedures to

rule Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical out physical conditions.42 During these investigations, patients often do not receive the treatment that is appropriate for their psychiatric disorder, and may never do so. In addition, an undue financial burden is imposed upon the health services. Another critical issue is the frequent comorbidity with depression, other anxiety disorders, and chronic physical conditions, which complicates the clinical presentation, makes diagnosis more difficult, increases Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the degree of impairment,43 and worsens the patient’s prognosis. In light of the various effective treatment options for GAD that have recently become available, it is important that GAD is diagnosed as early as possible to minimize the potential for the subsequent onset of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical depression, while improving the

patient’s quality of life and prognosis, and reducing health care costs. The high point prevalence of 8% of all primary care attendees,7 rendering GAD second only to depression as the most common disorder in primary care,44,45 has made improved recognition and earlier treatment a high priority in recent primary care research (Ballenger et al, personal communication). In probably the largest primary care study on this issue, the Generalized Anxiety and Depression in Primary Care (GAD P) study46 recently confirmed the high prevalence of GAD even in its pure form (uncomplicated Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical by depression) and showed that GAD patients are high users of primary care resources.31 For example, it very has been reported that gastroenterologists are the specialists seen most often by GAD patients (23 %).47 This contrasts with other disorders such as social anxiety for which the point prevalence is lower in primary care than in the general population.48 In remarkable contrast, the GAD P study revealed that patients with GAD are a great challenge to GPs, as demonstrated by extremely poor recognition and treatment rates. Despite the fact that GPs acknowledged the severity of their GAD patients by assigning some mental disorder in 73% of the patients, only a third were diagnosed correctly and only 10% overall received the current state-of-the-art treatment.