@article{ref1,
title="Two-year course of anxiety disorders: different across disorders or dimensions?",
journal="Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica",
year="2013",
author="Hendriks, Sanne M. and Spijker, Jan and Licht, Carmilla M. M. and Beekman, Aartjan T. F. and Penninx, Brenda W. J. H.",
volume="128",
number="3",
pages="212-221",
abstract="OBJECTIVE: This study compares diagnostic and symptom course trajectories across different anxiety disorders, and examines the role of anxiety arousal vs. avoidance behaviour symptoms in course prediction. METHOD: Data were from 834 subjects with a current anxiety disorder from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) who were re-interviewed after 2 years. DSM-IV-based diagnostic interviews and Life Chart Interviews (LCI) were used to assess the diagnostic and symptom course trajectory over 2 years. Anxiety arousal and avoidance behaviour symptoms were measured with LCI, Beck Anxiety Inventory and Fear Questionnaire. RESULTS: Prognosis varied across disorders, with favourable remittance rates of 72.5% for panic disorder without agoraphobia and 69.7% for generalized anxiety disorder; gradually declining to 53.5% for social phobia and 52.7% for panic disorder with agoraphobia. Only 42.9% of those with multiple anxiety disorder remitted, and this group showed a more chronic course than pure anxiety disorders. Both baseline duration and severity were course predictors. Avoidance behaviour symptoms predicted the outcome better than anxiety arousal symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that the specific anxiety disorders such as recognized by DSM-IV are useful in predicting the outcome and that this may be determined largely by the relative severity of avoidance behaviour that patients have developed.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0001-690X",
doi="10.1111/acps.12024",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acps.12024"
}