COMORBIDITY OF ANXIETY DISORDERS IN A MULTICENTER ANXIETY STUDY

From 11 sites in New England and Missouri, 711 patients with greater t han or equal to one of five index anxiety disorders were recruited ont o a longitudinal study in which they were interviewed every 6 months r egarding symptoms, course, and treatments received. Of the five disord ers studied, panic disorder without agoraphobia was the disorder most often found as a sole diagnosis and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) was least often found alone, both as lifetime diagnoses or when restr icted to cases active at intake. Panic disorder with agoraphobia and a goraphobia without history of panic disorder (AWOPD) had three specifi c diagnoses with which they were frequently comorbid: social phobia, s imple phobia, and GAD. AWOPD, social phobia, and GAD were frequently f ound in the presence of each other. It is possible that the experience of anxiety due to any syndromal cause may decrease the threshold for an individual to experience other anxiety symptoms or disorders. Clini cians should be aware of these patterns of comorbidity in order to for mulate accurate differential diagnoses and prescribe treatments in a r ational manner.