view has been particularly prominent in Europe where even the term "mood dis-orders" subsumes both anxiety and depression. In turn, the former, dual con-struct, view may reflect a more general tendency on the part of American psy- of the DSM-III framers that certain coexisting The Meaning : chiatry toward diagnostic "splitting" rather than "lumping" (Frances et aI1990). anxiety and dcpressive disorders, but as mentioned, early research that ignored these exclusion rules revealed extensive comorbidity. Moreover, research based on the The term comorbidity was coined in the context of chronic disease (Feinstein 1970) to refer to "any distinct additional clinical entity that has existed or that may occur during the clinical course of a patient who has the index disease un- der study" (pp. 456-57). Attempts to extend this definition of comorbidity to psychiatric disorder, however, quickly run into difficulties in delineating the

doi:10.4324/9780203825266-38

Chapter

view has been particularly prominent in Europe where even the term "mood dis-orders" subsumes both anxiety and depression. In turn, the former, dual con-struct, view may reflect a more general tendency on the part of American psy- of the DSM-III framers that certain coexisting The Meaning

Chapter

chiatry toward diagnostic "splitting" rather than "lumping" (Frances et aI1990). anxiety and dcpressive disorders, but as mentioned, early research that ignored these exclusion rules revealed extensive comorbidity. Moreover, research based on the The term comorbidity was coined in the context of chronic disease (Feinstein 1970) to refer to "any distinct additional clinical entity that has existed or that may occur during the clinical course of a patient who has the index disease un- der study" (pp. 456-57). Attempts to extend this definition of comorbidity to psychiatric disorder, however, quickly run into difficulties in delineating the

ABSTRACT

COMORBIDITY OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION 379