Comparison of descriptive variables for symptomatic volunteers and clinical patients with anxiety disorders

Worry about the generalizability of findings derived from clinical trials is a nagging problem. Because most clinical trials use individuals recruited by advertisements rather than patients solicited from clinical practice, bias in subject recruitment is a major concern. This paper compares and contrasts the demographic characteristics, symptomatologies, functional disabilities, health beliefs, and health expectations of clinical outpatients to those of subjects recruited from the media (symptomatic volunteers) for pharmacologic trials. Clinical patients were slightly younger, better educated, wealthier, and were more likely to be married. They had more recent exposure to benzodiazepines and antidepressants and were more likely to view their current condition as amenable to psychotherapy. They were more likely to feel that their symptoms would get worse without some type of treatment and to believe that treatment would cure them. The symptomatic volunteers had more presenting symptoms than the clinical patients. The two groups had similar Sheehan Disability Scale scores. These results suggest that further study is warranted of the characteristics of clinical patients and symptomatic volunteers.