UTILIZATION OF MEDICAL SPECIALISTS BY ANXIETY DISORDER PATIENTS

The purpose of this study was to determine the utilization of medical specialists by anxiety disorder patients, The setting was a university 's clinical outpatient drug trials for anxiety disorders. The particip ants were subjects identified by advertisement and diagnosed by psychi atric interviews and, in some instances, also by structured interviews . The main outcome measures were the subject responses on a questionna ire listing medical specialists. A total of 94 subjects were surveyed. Primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) were seen more often by panic disorder (PD) subjects than by obsessive-comp ulsive disorder (OCD) or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) subjects. Gastroenterologists were seen most frequently by the GAD subjects; der matologists and cardiologists by the OCD subjects; and otolaryngologis ts, obstetricians-gynecologists, neurologists, and urologists by the P D subjects. The PD subjects saw more specialists than the subjects wit h the other disorders. Medical specialists need to increase identifica tion of patients with various anxiety disorders to relieve suffering, improve health care practices, and obtain favorable cost:benefit ratio ns.