Prevalence of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in General Practice in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden
Abstract
Objectives This study assessed the prevalence rate of generalized anxiety disorder among patients of general practitioners in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and determined whether general practitioners recognize the condition and its correlates. Methods Data were gathered in September 2001. Participating patients received a questionnaire that included the Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire and the Depression Screening Questionnaire. The scale used DSM-IV criteria to identify generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive episode. General practitioners filled in a questionnaire about their patients' mental and physical illnesses, including generalized anxiety and major depressive episode. General practitioners' basic sociodemographic data and professional career information were also gathered. Results A total of 648 general practitioners and 8,879 patients participated in the study. The age-standardized rates for generalized anxiety disorder ranged from 4.1 to 6.0 percent for males and from 3.7 to 7.1 percent for females; for major depressive episode the rates ranged from 7.2 to 11.5 percent for males and from 9.9 to 14.2 percent for females. The proportion of generalized anxiety disorder cases recognized by general practitioners varied from 33 percent in Denmark to 53 percent in Norway. Recognition of generalized anxiety disorder by general practitioners was associated with presentation of anxiety problems by the patients. Physical symptoms as a reason for a consultat…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Sex differences in stress sensitivity emerge at puberty in humans and other animals, coinciding with an increased incidence of anxiety in women.
“Sex differences in stress sensitivity emerge at puberty in both humans (63, 64) and other animals (20–22), coinciding with an increased incidence of anxiety in women (10, 12, 14, 15).”
From Sexual differentiation of neural mechanisms of stress sensitivity during puberty (2023) · cites this paper as [10]
Cites
Wittchen, H.-U., H??fler, M., & Meister, W. (2001) · International Clinical Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1097/00004850-200105000-00001 · Cited by 163 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Baldwin, D. S., Anderson, I. M., Nutt, D. J., Allgulander, C., Bandelow, B., den Boer, J. A., Christmas, D. M., Davies, S., Fineberg, N., Lidbetter, N., et al. (2014) · Journal of Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1177/0269881114525674 · Cited by 676 · see citing works
Self-citationJohansson, R., Carlbring, P., Heedman, Å., Paxling, B., & Andersson, G. (2013) · PeerJ · doi:10.7717/peerj.98 · Cited by 309 · see citing works
Martin-Merino, E., Ruigomez, A., Wallander, M.-A., Johansson, S., & Garcia-Rodriguez, L. A. (2010) · Family Practice · doi:10.1093/fampra/cmp071 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
Generalized anxiety disorder in primary care: Mental health services use and treatment adequacy
Roberge, P., Normand-Lauzière, F., Raymond, I., Luc, M., Tanguay-Bernard, M.-M., Duhoux, A., Bocti, C., & Fournier, L. (2015) · BMC Family Practice · doi:10.1186/s12875-015-0358-y · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Baldwin, D. S., Allgulander, C., Bandelow, B., Ferre, F., & Pallanti, S. (2012) · The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.3109/15622975.2011.624548 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Self-citationSexual differentiation of neural mechanisms of stress sensitivity during puberty
Wright, E. C., Luo, P. X., Zakharenkov, H. C., Serna Godoy, A., Lake, A. A., Prince, Z. D., Sekar, S., Culkin, H. I., Ramirez, A. V., Dwyer, T., et al. (2023) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2306475120 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Berger, A., Edelsberg, J., Treglia, M., Alvir, J. M. J., & Oster, G. (2012) · BMC Psychiatry · doi:10.1186/1471-244x-12-177 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Psychiatric diagnosis in primary care patients with increased depressive symptoms
Kotiaho, S., Korniloff, K., Vanhala, M., Kautiainen, H., Koponen, H., Ahonen, T., & Mäntyselkä, P. (2019) · Nordic Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1080/08039488.2019.1584240 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Umeh, G. C., & Bangirana, P. (2016) · Tanzania Journal of Health Research · doi:10.4314/thrb.v19i1.3 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Munk-Jørgensen, P., Allgulander, C., Dahl, A. A., Foldager, L., Holm, M., Rasmussen, I., Virta, A., Huuhtanen, M.-T., & Wittchen, H.-U.
- Affiliations
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Aalborg University (DK)
- Päijät-Hämeen Keskussairaala (FI)
- Venue
- Psychiatric Services
- Published
- 2006-12
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1738-1744
- ISSN
- 0022-1597 (ISSN-L)
- 1075-2730
- 1557-9700
- OpenAlex
- W2150413573
- Cited by
- 96
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 7.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychiatric Services (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Keywords
- generalized anxiety disorder, prevalence, general practitioners, diagnostic recognition, major depressive episode, sex differences, somatic symptoms, anxiety neurosis, primary care, Nordic countries
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Denmark, Depressive Disorder, Major, Major Depressive Disorder, Family Practice, Female, Finland, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Norway, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Surveys and Questionnaires, Socioeconomic Factors, Sweden, Comorbidity, Prevalence, Sex Distribution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
