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Chapter 8 - Drugs to Treat Anxiety and Insomnia

from Part 2 - Psychopharmacology of the Main Psychotropic Drug Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2020

By
David S. Baldwin  and
Nathan T. M. Huneke
Edited by
Peter M. Haddad  and
David J. Nutt
Peter M. Haddad
Affiliation:
Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar
David J. Nutt
Affiliation:
Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Psychiatry, Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London
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Summary

Anxiety is an understandable response to perceived threat or experienced stress, and is usually fleeting and feels controllable: it represents an ‘alarm’, facilitating physical and psychological responses to perceived danger. Anxiety symptoms are mostly mild and transient, but many people experience severe and persistent symptoms that cause distress and impair everyday function. An anxiety disorder can be diagnosed when distressing and impairing anxiety exceeds specified severity thresholds and persists beyond minimum duration requirements, providing symptoms are not explicable by another condition. Insomnia is a common disorder in which sleep is reduced in amount or quality so that daytime well-being and functioning is impaired.

Type
Chapter
Information
Seminars in Clinical Psychopharmacology , pp. 268 - 289
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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