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.