FIRST-INCIDENCE ANXIETY IN THE LUNDBY STUDY - COURSE AND PREDICTORS OF OUTCOME

The aim of the present study was to analyse first-incidence anxiety in the Lundby Study with regard to course and predictors of outcome betw een 1947 and 1972. The Lundby concept of anxiety corresponds broadly t o that of anxiety disorders in DSM-III-R. The Lundby Study is a prospe ctive, psychiatric study of a geographically defined total population. The present study includes 124 subjects (46 men and 78 women) who bet ween 1947 and 1972 developed anxiety as their first mental illness in life. The median total duration of illness was 1.6 years in men and 1. 4 years in women. In both sexes episodes of mild impairment dominated. In total, 54% of the men and 71% of the women were mentally healthy a t the follow-up in 1972. A minority of the probands (27%) received psy chiatric treatment. They significantly more often suffered from panic disorder with agoraphobia during their first episode, and from camorbi dity of other mental illnesses, than did untreated subjects. They also had a significantly longer total duration of illness a variable with a negative predictive influence on the probability of being mentally h ealthy in 1972. Men with anxiety showed a 55% increase in alcoholism c ompared to standard values. They also displayed an increased risk of r elapsing into mental illness compared to female cases, a result which, in the light of earlier findings of increased mortality rates suggest s that further investigations of men with anxiety syndromes in the gen eral population are warranted.