ABSTRACT
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a moderately common anxiety
disorder in epidemiological studies (Kessler, 2001) and the most
common anxiety disorder in primary care settings (Maier et al, 2000). A
broader construct, similar to the older ‘anxiety neurosis’, is likely to be
even more prevalent in the community and in the clinic. GAD is a
chronic and disabling disorder, more common in women, with risk for
age of onset beginning in the teens and cumulative lifetime prevalence
increasingly in roughly linear fashion until the mid forties.
