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How Many People Are Affected By Anxiety

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What Do People Experience If They Have Anxiety Disorder

Rise in Anxiety Symptoms and How it Affects Your Health

When someone has an anxiety disorder, the worry and discomfort they experience is persistent . It can express itself physically as well as psychologically, and also affect behaviour.These changes in how someone feels, thinks, and acts can then start to interfere with their ability to live a normal life, to work, and to relate to other people.

Access To Groceries Medication And Essentials

Nearly 40% of people in Great Britain were worried about the affect the coronavirus was having on accessing essentials. Analysis from a recent ONS article Social impacts of COVID-19 on countries and regions of Britain found that Scotland had the fewest people who struggled to get groceries and toiletries. In comparison, up to 43% of people struggled to get groceries or toiletries in the East of England and the West Midlands.

The experience of struggling to get groceries, medication and essentials was a significant predictor of high anxiety. Those who struggled to get essentials were 1.3 times more likely to report high anxiety than those that did not report this.

Notes for: Coronavirus specific circumstances associated with high anxiety

  • An alternative pooled dataset for the period 10 April and 3 May 2020 was used as this dataset included additional breakdown which was were not available in the larger pooled data between 3 April and 10 May 2020.
  • Anxiety Disorder Affects All Ages And Walks Of Life

    Below is a graph from the Canadian government showing the percentages of people affected by anxiety disorder based on age:

    Age-specific annual prevalence and rate ratios of the use of health services for mood and anxiety disorders among people aged one year and older, by sex, Canada, 2009-2010 Photograph: The Canadian Government

    Based on several studies from various locations around the world, the highest incidence of anxiety disorder occurs between the ages of 30 to 40 years old.

    The highest incidence of onset is between the ages of 16 and 26.

    Overall, females experience anxiety disorder more than males. However, males are more reluctant to acknowledge and report anxiety disorder.

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    Anxiety Disorders Can Have Serious Effects

    An anxiety disorder may lead to social isolation and clinical depression, and can impair a persons ability to work, study and do routine activities. It may also hurt relationships with friends, family and colleagues. Its common for depression and anxiety to happen at the same time. Depression can be a serious illness with a high risk of self-harm and suicide.

    Psychologists And Other Clinicians

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    Clinical and counselling psychologists specialise in the treatment of mental illnesses, including Anxiety disorders. They can provide psychological treatments, which are usually the most effective treatments for Anxiety disorders.For further information, please see the Psychological treatments section in the Guide to Medication and other Treatments.

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    Anxiety Disorder Statistics By Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity

    Statistics around sexual orientation and mental health are difficult to quantify, but the studies that have been conducted point to mental health disparities among some, but not all, sexual minority groups. Researchers emphasized the importance of including multiple measures of sexual orientation in population-based health studies.

    One study found that mental health outcomes differed by sex, dimension of sexual orientation, and sexual minority group. Whereas a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity was associated with higher odds of any mood or anxiety disorder for both men and women, women reporting only same-sex sexual partners in their lifetime had the lowest rates of most disorders.17 The same study revealed:17

    • Higher odds of any lifetime mood or anxiety disorder were more consistent and pronounced among sexual minority men than among sexual minority women
    • Bisexual behavior conferred the highest odds of any mood or anxiety disorder for both males and females.

    An additional study showed that sexual minority groups when compared to heterosexual respondents were significantly more likely to describe their lives as stressful, with a weak sense of belonging in their community. Researchers concluded that factors placed them at significantly greater odds of the negative mental health outcomes.19

    A review of multiple studies concluded that:

    Women And Youth Most Affected

    Indicating that females were more affected than males – and that younger people, especially those aged between 20 and 24, were more affected than older adults – the report also reveals that young people are disproportionally at risk of suicidal and self-harming behaviour.

    It also outlines that people with pre-existing physical health conditions, such as asthma, cancer, and heart disease, were more likely to develop symptoms of mental disorders.

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    Break Problems Down To Tackle Them

    When you feel anxious it can seem like theres no way out from problems that trouble you. Try to take a fresh approach which helps you look at the problem from a different angle, so that stress and worry can be reduced.If something is troubling you, try not to dwell on it but write it down in black-and-white, then put down all the different ways you could tackle it. Consider which is the most realistic and useful, and what practical steps you could take to carry it out. Discuss these with your health professional.

    Build On What You Know Helps

    How stress affects your body – Sharon Horesh Bergquist

    You probably already have some healthy ways of helping yourself feel less anxious. Recognise and build on these.For example, every time you find yourself slipping into a spiral of worry over a past event or something that might happen in the future, tell yourself to stop and focus on the here-and-now, on enjoying being immersed in the present moment.Some people find it helpful to have a mantra or powerful mental image to help them do this: for example, imagining their life as a vast sphere and the worry as a tiny speck beside it.

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    Social Anxiety Disorder With Impairment Among Adults

    • Of adults with social anxiety disorder in the past year, degree of impairment ranged from mild to serious, as shown in Figure 2. Impairment was determined by scores on the Sheehan Disability Scale.3
    • Of adults with social anxiety disorder in the past year, an estimated 29.9% had serious impairment, 38.8% had moderate impairment, and 31.3% had mild impairment.

    Figure 2

    Past Year Severity of Social Anxiety Disorder Among U.S. Adults

    Severity
    100

    Prevalence Of Any Anxiety Disorder Among Adults

    • Based on diagnostic interview data from the National Comorbidity Study Replication , Figure 1 shows past year prevalence of any anxiety disorder among U.S. adults aged 18 or older.1
    • An estimated 19.1% of U.S. adults had any anxiety disorder in the past year.
    • Past year prevalence of any anxiety disorder was higher for females than for males .
  • An estimated 31.1% of U.S. adults experience any anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.2
  • Figure 1

    Past Year Prevalence of Any Anxiety Disorder Among U.S Adults

    Demographic
    9.0

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    Mental Health As A Risk Factor For Substance Abuse

    Mental health is known to be an important risk factor for the development of substance use disorders . The increased risk of a substance use disorder varies by mental health disorder type:

    • for alcohol dependency the risk is highest in individuals with intermittent explosive disorder, dysthymia, ODD, bipolar disorder and social phobia. This is discussed in our entry on Alcohol Consumption.
    • for illicit drug dependency the risk is highest for individuals with intermittent explosive disorder, ADHD, and bipolar disorder. This is discussed in our entry on Substance Use.

    Stanford Study Finds Stronger One

    How to understand anxiety

    Signals from the brains fear center make it more difficult for anxious and stressed children to regulate their emotions, a first-of-its-kind brain scanning study from Stanford shows.

    In chronically stressed or anxious children, the brains fear center sends signals to the decision-making part of the brain that make it harder to regulate negative emotions, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

    The findings, which was published April 21 in Biological Psychiatry, come from the first study to use brain scans to examine how emotion-regulation circuits are changed by anxiety and chronic stress in children. The children studied were 10 or 11 years old, a developmental stage when vulnerability to mood-regulation disorders, such as anxiety and depression, becomes entrenched.

    The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the nature of the signals between two parts of the brain: the amygdalae, almond-shaped nerve clusters on the right and left sides of the brain that function as its fear centers and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region involved in executive functions such as decision making and emotion regulation.

    Carrion is the director of the Stanford Early Life Stress and Pediatric Anxiety Program, and is the John A. Turner, MD, Endowed Professor for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Lead authorship of the paper is shared by researcher Stacie Warren, PhD, and postdoctoral scholar Yuan Zhang, PhD.

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    Who Gets Anxiety Disorders

    Anxiety disorders affect about 40 million American adults every year. Anxiety disorders also affect children and teens. About 8% of teens ages 13 to 18 have an anxiety disorder, with symptoms starting around age 6.5

    Women are more than twice as likely as men to get an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.2 Also, some types of anxiety disorders affect some women more than others:

    • Generalized anxiety disorder affects more American Indian/Alaskan Native women than women of other races and ethnicities. GAD also affects more white women and Hispanic women than Asian or African-American women.6
    • Social phobia and panic disorder affect more white women than women of other races and ethnicities.7

    Prevalence Of Mental Health And Substance Use Disorders

    The predominant focus of this entry is the prevalence and impacts of mental health disorders . However, it is useful as introduction to understand the total prevalence and disease burden which results from the broad IHME and WHO category of mental health and substance use disorders. This category comprises a range of disorders including depression, anxiety, bipolar, eating disorders, schizophrenia, intellectual developmental disability, and alcohol and drug use disorders.

    Mental and substance use disorders are common globally

    In the map we see that globally, mental and substance use disorders are very common: around 1-in-7 people have one or more mental or substance use disorders.

    Prevalence of mental health disorders by disorder type

    Its estimated that 970 million people worldwide had a mental or substance use disorder in 2017. The largest number of people had an anxiety disorder, estimated at around 4 percent of the population.

    Prevalence of mental health disorders by genders

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    Most Important Factors Affecting Anxiety During The Coronavirus Pandemic

    Regression analysis is used to assess the existence and strength of associations between personal well-being, individual characteristics and circumstances during the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis found 12 factors to have a significant association with reporting high levels of anxiety.

    Figure 2 shows the six most strongly associated factors1 associated with reporting high levels of anxiety between 3 April and 10 May 2020. In addition, Figure 2 shows the odds ratios of reporting high anxiety for one sub-group of individuals compared with a reference sub-group. For further details of all our findings please see Section 7.

    The results show differences within sub-groups of the population while controlling for personal characteristics , individual circumstances and coronavirus-specific questions . For more information on the regression technique used, please see Section 7.

    Figure 2: Those reporting that they Always or Often feel lonely are more likely to have higher levels of anxiety than those who never feel lonely

    Odds ratios of factors affecting high anxiety, Great Britain, 3 April to 10 May 2020

    Notes:

  • Respondents were asked Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? and answered on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all and 10 is completely. The outcome variable for the regression model is binary whereby high anxiety are those who scored between 6 and 10 and not high anxiety are those who scored between 0 and 5.
  • Mental Health Conditions: Depression And Anxiety

    How stress affects your brain – Madhumita Murgia

    Depression is more than just feeling down or having a bad day. When a sad mood lasts for a long time and interferes with normal, everyday functioning, you may be depressed. Symptoms of depression include:1

    • Feeling sad or anxious often or all the time
    • Not wanting to do activities that used to be fun
    • Feeling irritable easily frustrated or restless
    • Having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
    • Waking up too early or sleeping too much
    • Eating more or less than usual or having no appetite
    • Experiencing aches, pains, headaches, or stomach problems that do not improve with treatment
    • Having trouble concentrating, remembering details, or making decisions
    • Feeling tired even after sleeping well
    • Feeling guilty, worthless, or helpless
    • Thinking about suicide or hurting yourself

    The following information is not intended to provide a medical diagnosis of major depression and cannot take the place of seeing a mental health professional. If you think you are depressed talk with your doctor or a mental health professional immediately. This is especially important if your symptoms are getting worse or affecting your daily activities.

    The exact cause of depression is unknown. It may be caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors.2 Everyone is different but the following factors may increase a persons chances of becoming depressed:1

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    Supporting Someone With Anxiety Disorder

    If a family member or friend is affected by an anxiety disorder, talk to your GP or other health professional about where you can find out more about anxiety disorders, and about support for yourself as well as the person affected.Family and friends can make a big difference to the lives of people affected by anxiety, but you have to make sure you look after your own mental health as well.

    Anxiety Statistics By Sex

    The following statistics are specific to people in the U.S.:

    • Anxiety disorders are more common in females than in males. Anxiety affects 23% of female adults and 14% of male adults.
    • Anxiety is also more prevalent in female adolescents than male adolescents . As of 2001-2004, 38% of female adolescents had an anxiety disorder versus 26.1% of male adolescents.
    • Women are twice as likely to have generalized anxiety than men.
    • The prevalence of OCD in women and men is equal, affecting 2.2 million adults.

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    Fear Of Contracting Covid

    Jaeyell Kim, a Toronto social worker and psychotherapist, says he was not surprised by the survey results.

    Kim said he, like many other therapists, is operating at full capacity. He said he noticed a drastic uptick in similar reports from his clients after the Omicron wave kicked in, due to feeling isolated and not knowing what the future holds.

    Kim said some clients who started to feel optimism last year because of COVID-19 vaccines and loosened restrictions were hit with a harder sense of helplessness and loneliness during this wave.

    “People are starting to ask more questions like ‘What if this never ends?’ and I think that really starts to increase the levels of anxiety,” Kim told CBC News. “We are constantly asking questions and … we try to come up with the worst case scenario to prepare ourselves.”

    The survey is the ninth and final CAMH survey in a series on Canadians’ pandemic health and substance abuse, conducted in collaboration with Delvinia, a research technology and consumer data collection company.

    Anxiety Statistics: Painting A Concerning Picture

    How many teenagers are affected by anxiety ?

    The statistics outlined in this article highlight the scale of the public health challenge posed by anxiety, and the key role employers must play in meeting that challenge.

    With nearly 60% of employees experiencing symptoms of anxiety, proactively managing employee mental health must be at the forefront of any successful workplace health strategy.

    There are many ways that leaders can support employees with anxiety, including:

    • Taking steps to reduce workplace stress
    • Signposting towards internal wellbeing offerings and external support services

    Uncertainty may be a normal part of life, but with rates of anxiety increasing across the UK, we must all do more to support our colleagues, friends and family.

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    Anxiety Statistics In The United States

    The following statistics are specific to adults in the U.S.:

    • Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults.
    • The prevalence by state of mental illness ranges from the lowest in Florida to the highest in Oregon.
    • The majority of adults with anxiety have a mild impairment , 33.7% have a moderate impairment, and 22.8% have a serious impairment.
    • Nearly half of survey respondents experience anxiety regularly.
    • 19 million adults experience specific phobias, making it the most common anxiety disorder in America.
    • 15 million adults have social anxiety.
    • 7.7 million adults have PTSD.
    • 6.8 million adults have generalized anxiety.
    • 6 million adults have panic disorders.

    Depression Is Complicated This Is How Our Understanding Of The Condition Has Evolved Over Time

    People often think of depression as a single, uniform condition deep sadness and a loss of interest in the activities that someone usually enjoys. But depression is complicated and its difficult to define what it means in an objective way.

    This is because depression is a condition of the mind: it is diagnosed based on peoples psychological symptoms and behavior, not from a brain scan or markers in their blood or DNA.

    When we diagnose depression, we have to rely on people to recall their own symptoms. We have to trust that doctors will observe and probe their symptoms reliably. We have to analyze this information to understand what people with depression experience that other people dont.

    Our ability to do all of these things accurately has changed over time, and so has our understanding of depression.

    This comes down to three factors.

    First, many countries now screen for depression in the general population, not just in a subset of people who are seen by a small number of doctors. In many studies, researchers track patients over long periods of time to understand how the condition progresses.

    Second, we use questionnaires and interviews that treat depression as a condition that can occur at different levels and change with time.

    Third, we have better statistical tools to help us refine questionnaires and understand how symptoms are related to one another.

    Surveying depression in the general population

    Measuring depression on levels

    Analyzing depression with more rigour

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