Screening for anxiety disorders in the primary care setting

It is important to identify patients with anxiety disorders in the primary care setting so that they may be appropriately treated. The authors propose administration of a brief, 40-item screening instrument, the Four Dimensional Anxiety Scale (FDAS), to distinguish anxiety disorders from anxiety associated with medical conditions and from normal anxiety. For anxiety disorders patients, responses to five items on the FDAS Emotional dimension and 10 items on the Cognitive dimension differ significantly from medical patients or normals, and may help identify them. With such early identification and referral, medical costs of inappropriate care can be minimized, and human suffering can be alleviated through referral to a specialty anxiety disorders clinic.