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Anxiety disorders in the UK
The best estimates suggest that: one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year; one in six will experience a common mental health problem such as anxiety or depression; and that these figures have steadily increased over the past 20 years.
Estimates of the number of people who experience anxiety vary because of the different methods for gathering data and the different criteria used in identifying it.
Some surveys rely on self-reporting: people’s own assessments of their emotional state. While the results can help us appreciate the general mood of a population and the distribution of anxiety within a population, such surveys lack the consistency of a diagnostic threshold.
However, reports based on service data will, by definition, only include those willing and able to seek help
for their anxiety and rely on the correct identification by professionals of the presence of a problem.
Estimating the prevalence of anxiety problems is further complicated by the fact that, in diagnostic terms, anxiety is the common thread linking a range of disorders, from agoraphobia to obsessive compulsive disorder.
Some disorders are linked (for example, agoraphobia and panic disorders), while each displays particular
characteristics which themselves impact on people’s lives.
