German Anxiety Barometer-Clinical and Everyday-Life Anxieties in the General Population.
The objective of this study was to test a time-efficient screening instrument to assess clinically relevant and everyday-life (e.g., economic, political, personal) anxieties. Furthermore, factors influencing these anxieties, correlations between clinical and everyday anxieties and, for the first time, anxiety during different stages of life were assessed in a representative sample of the general population (N = 2229). Around 30% of the respondents manifested at least one disorder-specific key symptom within 1 year (women > men), 8% reported severe anxiety symptoms. Two thirds of respondents reported minor everyday anxieties and 5% were strongly impaired, whereby persons with severe clinical symptoms were more frequently affected. A variety of potential influencing factors could be identified. These include, in addition to socioeconomic status, gender, general health, risk-taking, and leisure behavior, also some up to now little investigated possible protective factors, such as everyday-life mental activity. The observed effects are rather small, which, however, given the heterogeneity of the general population seems plausible. Although the correlative design of the study does not allow direct causal conclusions, it can, however, serve as a starting point for experimental intervention studies in the future. Together with time series from repeated representative surveys, we expect these data to provide a better understanding of the processes that underlie everyday-life and clinical anxieties.
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology, Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr Universität BochumBochum, Germany; Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr University BochumBochum, Germany.
Dirk
D
Adolph
Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr University Bochum Bochum, Germany.
Silvia
S
Schneider
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology, Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr Universität Bochum Bochum, Germany.
Jürgen
J
Margraf
anxiety across the lifespan; anxiety disorders; epidemiological data; everyday-life anxieties; representative data
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2008 Apr;43(4):257-65
18084686
Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2014 Dec;23(4):422-38
25048296
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006 Apr;63(4):415-24
16585471
Am J Psychiatry. 2013 Jul;170(7):768-81
23680783
Behav Res Ther. 1983;21(6):685-92
6661153
Nervenarzt. 2014 Jan;85(1):77-87
24441882
Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2009 Sep;32(3):483-524
19716988
Psychophysiology. 2001 Mar;38(2):197-204
11347865
Behav Res Ther. 1994 Nov;32(8):867-70
7993331
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2011 Sep;21(9):655-79
21896369
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2010 Dec;45(12):1161-6
19888542
Bundesgesundheitsblatt Gesundheitsforschung Gesundheitsschutz. 2013 Jan;56(1):131-43
23275948
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000 Dec;79(6):1007-21
11138751
Psychol Med. 2013 May;43(5):897-910
22781489
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2011 May;14(5):291-6
21067277
Behav Res Ther. 1996 Jan;34(1):33-9
8561762
Bundesgesundheitsblatt Gesundheitsforschung Gesundheitsschutz. 2013 May;56(5-6):631-6
23703479
Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2004;13(2):93-121
15297906
Behav Ther. 2007 Mar;38(1):23-38
17292692
Clin Psychol Rev. 2009 Aug;29(6):496-505
19541399
J Behav Addict. 2013;2(2):72
24294501
BMC Psychol. 2014 Dec 23;2(1):58
25628891
J Anxiety Disord. 2001 May-Jun;15(3):231-45
11442141
Psychol Med. 2004 May;34(4):597-611
15099415
Nervenarzt. 1997 Sep;68(9):683-95
9411271
Depress Anxiety. 2001;13(2):78-88
11301924
J Psychiatr Res. 2011 Aug;45(8):1027-35
21439576
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2011 Oct;14(10):591-6
21342010