Treating children for anxiety 'would cut risk of mental illness'

Children should be screened for anxiety disorders to prevent them developing severe mental problems in later life.

The following are extracts from an article by Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor in The Independent, Monday, 5th September 2011

Children should be screened for anxiety disorders to prevent them developing severe mental problems in later life. Treating anxiety early would be the single most effective way of reducing the burden of mental disorders – one of the most common causes of disability in the developed world, according to Professor Hans Ulrich Witten, lead author of study of the state of Europe's mental health.

It is estimated that 38.2 per cent – 165 million people – of people in Europe suffers from a mental disorder and that anxiety is the commonest.

The findings of the three-year study, which covered 30 countries and more than 500 million people have been published in the journal European Psychopharmacology.

The incidence of depression has doubled since the 1970s and the average age at onset has fallen from the mid-twenties to the late teens as adolescents lost their sense of security in a changing world, Professor Witten said. 

Anxiety disorders affect 14 per cent of the population and effective treatment at an early stage can reduce the later development of depression by 60 per cent. Professor Witten said: "We screen for dental caries [decay] – why not for anxiety, ... because the potential treatments are so effective?" 

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