Brief intervention for anxiety in primary care patients.

To address the difficulty of assessing and managing multiple anxiety disorders in the primary care setting, this article provides a simple, easy-to-learn, unified approach to the diagnosis, care management, and pharmacotherapy of the 4 most common anxiety disorders found in primary care: panic, generalized anxiety disorders, social anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder. This evidence-based approach was developed for an ongoing National Institute of Mental Health-funded study designed to improve the delivery of evidence-based medication and psychotherapy treatment to primary care patients with these anxiety disorders. We present a simple, validated method to screen for the 4 major disorders that emphasizes identifying other medical or psychiatric comorbidities that can complicate treatment; an approach for initial education of the patient and discussion about treatment, including provision of some simple cognitive behavioral therapy skills, based on motivational interviewing/brief intervention approaches previously used for substance use disorders; a validated method for monitoring treatment outcome; and an algorithmic approach for the selection of initial medication treatment, the selection of alternative or adju...Continue Reading