Quality of life in geriatric generalized anxiety disorder: a preliminary investigation.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the impact of late-life generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) on health-related quality of life.


METHODS
We compared quality of life in 75 treatment-seeking older adults with GAD, 39 of whom had psychiatric comorbidity, with 32 older adults without psychiatric illness. We examined predictors of quality of life in these samples. We also compared data from the GAD patients to published norms from a large national sample of older adults with chronic medical conditions or major depression.


RESULTS
Older GAD patients reported worse health-related quality of life across most domains than asymptomatic older individuals. There were no differences in quality of life between GAD patients with and without psychiatric comorbidity, and comorbidity did not predict quality of life in multivariate regression analyses. Presence of GAD or symptoms of anxiety or depression were significantly related to impairment in every domain of quality of life. Comparisons with national norms suggest that older GAD patients report overall worse quality of life than individuals with recent acute myocardial infarction or type II diabetes, and are comparable in quality of life to individuals with major depression.


CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that late-life GAD is associated with substantial impairment in quality of life, and these findings cannot be explained by psychiatric comorbidity.
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcase System, 9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0603V, La Jolla, CA 92093-0603, USA. jwetherell@ucsd.edu
Julie Loebach
JL
Wetherell
Steven R
SR
Thorp
Thomas L
TL
Patterson
Shahrokh
S
Golshan
Dilip V
DV
Jeste
Margaret
M
Gatz
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011788:Quality of Life