Where Patients Seek Treatment
A large number of patients with an anxiety disorder never seek treatment. These reasons will be discussed in depth in the next section. Those who do seek help often turn to practitioners in acute care clinics or emergency departments. As many as 28% to 57% of patients with panic attacks will seek treatment in the emergency room of a hospital. This is the most logical place for the patient to go, since a panic attack is usually experienced as “life-threatening” to the patient. Patients seldom seek initial treatment from psychiatrists, even though psychiatrists are often the best informed and educated to deliver effective treatment.
Because so many patients seek treatment from their primary care providers, there has been an increased effort to train these practitioners to recognize and treat the most common anxiety disorders. Primary care settings in which patients may seek treatment include family medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, and dermatology. Often, patients may seek treatment from specialists based on the primary organ system that is affected; patients tend to focus on one symptom above the others and seek out specialists to treat that problem.