Prevalence of specific anxiety disorders in adulthood

The ratio of 1-year prevalence to lifetime prevalence is an indirect indicator of disorder persistence.² It is relatively high for most anxiety disorders, suggesting they are chronic and recurrent.¹ Among patients with only one anxiety disorder, remission rates after 2 years are ~70–73% for panic disorder (PD) without agoraphobia, and for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), ~53% for social anxiety disorder (SAD), and for PD with agoraphobia, and ~43% for those with multiple anxiety disorders.³ The median time to remission is much shorter in PD without agoraphobia and GAD (both 4 months, with almost half of patients experiencing remission within 6 months) compared with PD with agoraphobia (23 months), SAD (18 months), and multiple anxiety disorder (24 months).³ No significant difference has been observed between different anxiety disorders with respect to late remission (>6 months) or remission with recurrence.³

References:

1. Penninx BW, Pine DS, Holmes EA, Reif A. Anxiety disorders. Lancet 2021; 397 (10277): 914–927.
2. Stein DJ, Lim CCW, Roest AM, et al. The cross-national epidemiology of social anxiety disorder: data from the World Mental Health Survey initiative. BMC Med 2017; 15 (1): 143.
3. Hendriks SM, Spijker J, Licht CMM, et al. Two-year course of anxiety disorders: different across disorders of dimensions? Acta Psychiatr Scand 2013; 128 (3): 212–221.