Key Takeaways

From the Authors As published in the article
  1. Generalized anxiety disorder is highly prevalent in underserved Venezuelan populations, particularly among women, highlighting the need for routine screening in primary care settings.
  2. Psychosocial stress, family history of anxiety or depression, occasional alcohol consumption, and unbalanced eating habits are key factors associated with moderate-to-severe anxiety; addressing these factors may improve patient outcomes through individualized interventions.
  3. Awareness of post–COVID-19 anxiety symptoms and early identification of anxiety and panic episodes can guide community-based and preventive mental health strategies, especially in resource-limited settings.
Extended Takeaways
  1. In this primary care sample, 94.0% of participants had at least mild anxiety on the HAM-A, with 44.0% in the moderate-to-severe range, underscoring that clinically meaningful anxiety burden was common even among patients without prior GAD diagnosis or current psychiatric pharmacotherapy.
  2. Psychosocial stress showed the strongest association with anxiety severity in the analysis (OR =124.6; 99% CI, 29.3–529.6; P<.001), so pairing anxiety screening with a brief stress measure such as the PSS may help identify patients most likely to have more severe symptoms.
  3. Lifetime anxiety episodes and panic attacks clustered heavily with higher anxiety severity: among patients with moderate-to-severe anxiety, 85.7% reported anxiety episodes and 90.0% reported panic attacks, which can help clinicians prioritize diagnostic clarification when these histories are elicited in primary care.
  4. A history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was present in 47.27% of participants and was associated with anxiety severity (OR=1.9; 99% CI, 1.2–3.1; P < .001), suggesting that post-COVID clinical histories should routinely include anxiety assessment in community settings.
  5. Smoking habits, illicit substance use, personal history of depression, traumatic childhood event, and medical comorbidities were not significantly associated with anxiety severity in this sample, which may help clinicians avoid over-weighting these factors relative to the stronger correlates identified here.
  6. Only 10% of the sample reported traumatic brain injury, and no cases in that subgroup had moderate-to-severe anxiety; the authors did not perform bivariate or logistic analyses for this variable because of the small and likely unrepresentative sample, so these data should not be used to infer a protective effect.
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Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc. (PPP) makes no warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry or other PPP materials, and disclaims liability for any use or non-use of that information. Clinicians should not rely solely on these materials and should exercise their own professional judgment when making patient care decisions on an individualized basis.

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