Abstract

BACKGROUND
Anxiety disorders are often associated with several non-psychiatric medical conditions. Among the clinical conditions found in association with anxiety stands out the joint hypermobility (JH).
OBJECTIVES
To carry out a systematic review of the clinical association between anxiety disorders and JH.
METHOD
A survey was conducted in MEDLINE, PsychINFO, LILACS e SciELO databases up to December 2011. We searched for articles using the keywords 'anxiety', 'joint' and 'hypermobility' and Boolean operators. The review included articles describing empirical studies on the association between JH and anxiety. The reference lists of selected articles were systematically hand-searched for other publications relevant to the review.
RESULTS
Seventeen articles were included in the analysis and classified to better extract data. We found heterogeneity between the studies relate to the methodology used. Most of the studies found an association between anxiety features and JH. Panic disorder/agoraphobia was the anxiety disorder associated with JH in several studies. Etiological explanation of the relationship between anxiety and JH is still controversial.
CONCLUSION
Future research in large samples from the community and clinical setting and longitudinal studies of the association between anxiety and HA and the underlying biological mechanisms involved in this association are welcome.

Links

Publisher Full Text

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Authors

Sanches SH, Osório Fde L, Udina M, Martín-Santos R, Crippa JA

Institution

Neurosciences and Behavior Department, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. shbianchi@uol.com.br

Source

Revista brasileira de psiquiatria (São Paulo, Brazil : 1999) 34 Suppl 1: 2012 Jun pg S53-60

MeSH

Agoraphobia
Anxiety Disorders
Humans
Joint Instability

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

Language

eng por

PubMed ID

22729449