The authors used symptom profiles, demographic data, and other variables
to compare 316 patients representing all specific DSM-III anxiety disorders
except posttraumatic stress disorder to each other and to published norms
for both an unselected psychiatric outpatient population and normal
subjects. The results support the grouping of these disorders, with the
possible exception of obsessive-compulsive disorder, into one general
diagnostic category of "anxiety disorders." The distinction between the
specific diagnoses of simple phobia and social phobia was also supported;
however, the differentiation between panic disorder, agoraphobia, and
generalized anxiety was only weakly supported.
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