Generalized anxiety disorder in older medical patients: Diagnostic recognition, mental health management and service utilization

Background: Primary care physicians often treat older adults with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Objective: To estimate physician diagnosis and recognition of anxiety and compare health service use among older adults with GAD with two comparison samples with and without other DSM diagnoses. Methods: Participants were 60+ patients of a multi-specialty medical organization. Administrative database and medical records were reviewed for a year. Differences in frequency of health service use were analyzed with logistic regression and between-subjects analysis of covariance. Results: Physician diagnosis of GAD was 1.5% and any anxiety was 9%, and recognition of anxiety symptoms was 34% in older adults with GAD. After controlling for medical comorbidity, radiology appointments were increased in the GAD group relative to those with and without other psychiatric diagnoses, ξ² (2, N = 225) = 4.75, p < .05. Conclusions: Most patients with anxiety do not have anxiety or symptomsdocumented in their medical records.