4 - The emergence of social anxiety disorder as a major medical condition

Summary

Social phobia turned out to be a severe clinical problem for patients whose fear of evaluation and scrutiny by others interfered with social functioning as well as performance. The study comparing phenelzine, atenolol, and placebo in social anxiety disorder became a model to be followed by subsequent trials. Social anxiety disorder appears to be a highly prevalent condition. While the most recent epidemiologic survey, the NESARC, has found a lifetime prevalence of 5% as opposed to the 13% found in the original National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) study, it would still appear that social anxiety disorder is one of the more common psychiatric conditions. Future studies should go a long way toward clarifying the pathophysiology of social anxiety disorder, which in turn should facilitate diagnosis as well as treatment. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans of patients giving speeches are beginning to delineate the brain circuits relevant to social phobic symptomatology.