Anxiety disorders in outpatients with schizophrenia: prevalence and impact on the subjective quality of life.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the prevalence of comorbid lifetime anxiety disorders in outpatients with schizophrenia and to compare the subjective quality of life of patients with and without comorbid anxiety disorders.

METHODS

Fifty-three outpatients were recruited. They were interviewed with the Anxiety Disorders section of the SCID for DSM-IV. Quality of life was assessed with the Sheehan disability scale (SDS).

RESULTS

Specific prevalences of anxiety comorbidity were: social phobia (17%), OCD (15.1%), GAD (9.4%), anxiety disorder NOS (7.5%), panic disorder (5.7%), specific phobia (5.7%), PTSD (3.8%), and agoraphobia (1.9%). Schizophrenic patients with comorbid anxiety disorder (41.5%) showed significantly higher scores in global scale (p=0.005), work subscale (p=0.007), and social life subscale (p=0.003) of the SDS than their counterparts without comorbid conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Anxiety disorders may impose an additional burden to patients with schizophrenia, resulting in further decline in their subjective quality of life.