Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The principal difficulty of patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder is that they experience difficult to control anxiety and apprehensive expectation about a number of events or activities (such as work or school performance).

The diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder is considered when the clinical picture of the adult patient presents at least three of the following characteristics and at least one, if the patient is a child:

1. Restlessness or agitated or on edge.
2. Being easily fatigued.
3. Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank.
4. Irritability.
5. Muscle tension.
6. Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless, unsatisfying sleep).

In addition the following duration (B) and clinical significance (C) criteria should be met:

B. The anxiety, worry or physical symptoms occur for more days of the week and for at least 6 months.

C. The anxiety, worry or physical symptoms must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Important notice: You should not reach the decision that you or the person you have in mind, when reading the above clinical description, suffers from generalized anxiety disorder. We encourage you to seek professional advice, if you feel that you or the persons you care about meet one or more of the clinical criteria.