As America confronts a massive mental health crisis, the US Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that everyone under 65 should be regularly screened for anxiety disorders – even those without symptoms – and particularly postpartum and pregnant women.
Anxiety disorders are often missed without regular screening in the primary care setting, causing “years-long delays in treatment”, and there was no evidence of harm being caused by regular screening, it said.
The task force had also considered whether to recommend suicide screening for adults, but determined there wasn’t enough evidence on whether screening those “without recognised signs or symptoms” would help prevent suicide, reports Forbes.
The agency had already recommended all adults be screened regularly for depression and is continuing that.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
US health panel calls for routine anxiety screening in adults
Mental illness often wrongly blamed for mass shootings – US psychiatrist
Continued increase in depressive symptoms over course of pandemic – representative US study
US pandemic alcohol use – Age-differentiated and spurred by depression, anxiety
The Age of Anxiety: ‘We need tough love not psychobabble’