Dataset Information

Recent trends in the incidence of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Anxiety is common, with significant morbidity, but little is known about presentations and recording of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care. This study aimed to determine trends in incidence and socio-demographic variation in General Practitioner (GP) recorded diagnoses of anxiety, mixed anxiety/depression, panic and anxiety symptoms.

Methodology/principal findings

Annual incidence rates of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms were calculated from 361 UK general practices contributing to The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database between 1998 and 2008, adjusted for year of diagnosis, gender, age, and deprivation. Incidence of GP recorded anxiety diagnosis fell from 7.9 to 4.9/1000PYAR from 1998 to 2008, while incidence of anxiety symptoms rose from 3.9 to 5.8/1000PYAR. Incidence of mixed anxiety/depression fell from 4.0 to 2.2/1000PYAR, and incidence of panic disorder fell from 0.9/1000PYAR in 1998 to 0.5/1000PYAR in 2008. All these entries were approximately twice as common in women and more common in deprived areas. GP-recorded anxiety diagnoses, symptoms and mixed anxiety/depression were commonest aged 45-64 years, whilst panic disorder/attacks were more common in those 16-44 years. GPs predominately use broad non-specific codes to record anxiety problems in the UK.

Conclusions/significance

GP recording of anxiety diagnoses has fallen whilst recording of anxiety symptoms has increased over time. The incidence of GP recorded diagnoses of anxiety diagnoses was lower than in screened populations in primary care. The reasons for this apparent under-recording and whether it represents under-detection in those being seen, a reluctance to report anxiety to their GP, or a reluctance amongst GPs to label people with anxiety requires investigation.

SUBMITTER: Walters K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3411689 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Recent trends in the incidence of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care.

Walters Kate K Rait Greta G Griffin Mark M Buszewicz Marta M Nazareth Irwin I

PloS one 20120803 8

<h4>Background</h4>Anxiety is common, with significant morbidity, but little is known about presentations and recording of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care. This study aimed to determine trends in incidence and socio-demographic variation in General Practitioner (GP) recorded diagnoses of anxiety, mixed anxiety/depression, panic and anxiety symptoms.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>Annual incidence rates of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms were calculated from 361 UK general pr ...[more]

PMID: 22870242

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Project description:The UK Biobank has made general practitioner (GP) data (censoring date 2016-2017) available for approximately 45% of the cohort, whilst hospital inpatient and death registry (referred to as "HES/Death") data are available cohort-wide through 2018-2022 depending on whether the data comes from England, Wales or Scotland. We assessed the importance of case ascertainment via different data sources in UKB for three diseases that are usually first diagnosed in primary care: Parkinson's disease (PD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and all-cause dementia. Including GP data at least doubled the number of incident cases in the subset of the cohort with primary care data (e.g. from 619 to 1390 for dementia). Among the 786 dementia cases that were only captured in the GP data before the GP censoring date, only 421 (54%) were subsequently recorded in HES. Therefore, estimates of the absolute incidence or risk-stratified incidence are misleadingly low when based only on the HES/Death data. For incident cases present in both HES/Death and GP data during the full follow-up period (i.e. until the HES censoring date), the median time difference between an incident diagnosis of dementia being recorded in GP and HES/Death was 2.25 years (i.e. recorded 2.25 years earlier in the GP records). Similar lag periods were also observed for PD (median 2.31 years earlier) and T2D (median 2.82 years earlier). For participants with an incident GP diagnosis, only 65.6% of dementia cases, 69.0% of PD cases, and 58.5% of T2D cases had their diagnosis recorded in HES/Death within 7 years since GP diagnosis. The effect estimates (hazard ratios, HR) of established risk factors for the three health outcomes mostly remain in the same direction and with a similar strength of association when cases are ascertained either using HES only or further adding GP data. The confidence intervals of the HR became narrower when adding GP data, due to the increased statistical power from the additional cases. In conclusion, it is desirable to extend both the coverage and follow-up period of GP data to allow researchers to maximise case ascertainment of chronic health conditions in the UK.

Dataset Information

Recent trends in the incidence of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care.

Background

Methodology/principal findings

Conclusions/significance

Publications

Recent trends in the incidence of anxiety diagnoses and symptoms in primary care.

Similar Datasets

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