2 quick questions to dirty-diagnose an anxiety disorder…
Monday, January 8, 2024. I love brain hacks!
Here is a super brief hack that might help identify an anxiety disorder quite quickly.
Anxiety extracts a huge cost from public health.
Research reveals that nearly 20% of humans who visit their doctor are doing so because they suffer from an anxiety disorder…
And it’s often that only 2 questions are often sufficient to suggest that there is an anxiety issue that needs to be addressed:
In the past two weeks, have you felt nervous, anxious, or on edge?
In the past two weeks, have you been unable to stop or control worrying?
There are 4 multiple-choice answers to these two questions:
Not at all… several days…more than half the days… nearly every day.
The more frequently someone is worrying and unable to stop or control it (i.e. every day or half the day), the more likely that they have an anxiety disorder.
Dr Kurt Kroenke is an expert on symptoms lacking a discernible cause. He’s also the study’s first author:
“Anxiety often manifests as a physical symptom like pain, fatigue, or inability to sleep, so it is not surprising that one out of five patients who come to a doctor’s office with a physical complaint have anxiety.”
The study surveyed nearly 1000 humans, (ok, 965) in 15 primary care clinics.
Dr. Kroenke said:
“Doctors like to quantify things.
We can objectively measure blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol, but symptoms of anxiety can be missed in a busy primary care practice.
The seven-question GAD-7 and remarkably even the two-question “ultra brief” version gives the physician a tool to quantify the patient’s symptoms — sort of a lab test for anxiety.”
These two questions on their own are not sufficient for a firm clinical diagnosis, but as a dirty diagnostic tool, they can help identify when there might be an anxiety issue that might require more attention.
Be well, stay kind and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Kurt Kroenke, Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B.W. Williams, et al. Anxiety Disorders in Primary Care: Prevalence, Impairment, Comorbidity, and Detection. Ann Intern Med.2007;146:317-325. [Epub 6 March 2007]. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-146-5-200703060-00004
