Anxiety: its nature and treatment
Lader, M.
South African Medical Journal 49(23): 939-943
1975
ISSN/ISBN: 0256-9574 PMID: 237328 Document Number: 85354
Anxiety is an unpleasant, diffuse emotion, directed towards the future and associated with feelings of threat to the individual. Clinical anxiety occurs when a patient suffers from anxiety which is more frequent, more severe or more persistent than he is used to and can tolerate. Almost a third of the adult population will admit to some symptoms of anxiety. Drug therapy, in particular the benzodiazepines, is the mainstay of treatment, but care must be taken to avoid overprescription.