Recognizing the patient with social anxiety disorder

Social anxiety disorder is a prevalent and highly disabling condition, affecting 7-13% of the population at some point in their lives. Most sufferers are not diagnosed however, even after visiting a healthcare professional. Social anxiety disorder need not be a difficult condition to diagnose. Characteristic features of the disorder include blushing as the principal symptom and an early age of onset. Social anxiety disorder is also easily distinguished from other anxiety disorders by the situations in which patients experience fear and avoidance; for the patient with social anxiety disorder, these situations always involve social interaction or scrutiny by other people. The consequences of untreated social anxiety disorder include social isolation, impaired educational attainment and career progression, depression, and alcohol abuse. Rating scales such as the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) give a consistent measure of severity of social anxiety disorder and so help physicians assess their patients' need for treatment and their improvement. Social anxiety disorder is an eminently treatable condition, as demonstrated by treatment-induced reduction in LSAS scores in clinical trials and by individual case histories. Appropriate therapy can give patients relief from their distressing and disabling symptoms and allows them to make substantial improvements to their quality of life.