News - Melbourne Medibrain Centre

Australian Family Physician, Vol. 40, No. 6, June 2011

Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal human physiological mechanism designed to help the body respond to a threat.  The autonomic changes that occur in anxiety are essential to avoid danger and moderate anxiety can actually improve performance.  However, when anxiety is associated with very high levels of autonomic arousal, erroneous cognitions including exaggerated threat perceptions and dysfunctional coping strategies, it can result in significant distress and impairment in work, school, family, relationships, and/or activities of daily living.

Coexisting psychiatric disorders
Anxiety may be a symptom of, or co-exist with, another underlying psychiatric disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder or a psychotic disorder. It is important to screen for these diagnoses at the initial assessment. For example, the ruminative thoughts seen in depression can be similar to worry, but they usually are more concerned with past events, self-criticism and guilt, rather than future events. If a specific anxiety disorder is diagnosed, there is a high risk that the patient will also have a psychiatric comorbidity or substance use.