Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

1. Overview & Epidemiology

Fear vs anxiety (Gajdos lecture, examiner loves this opener):

• Fear = response to a known, external, definite threat.
• Anxiety = response to a threat that is unknown, internal, vague, or conflictual.
• Normal anxiety exists and is adaptive (facilitator); pathological anxiety is a debilizer that impairs thinking, perception and learning.

Burden / prevalence (National Comorbidity Study, per UD slides):

• 1 in 4 persons meets criteria for ≥1 anxiety disorder; 12-month prevalence ≈ 17.7%.
• ~Half of all GP attenders meet criteria for an anxiety disorder → anxiety is the commonest psychiatric presentation in primary care.