Brief report
A community-based telephone survey of social anxiety disorder in Hong Kong

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Abstract

Background

Research on the prevalence and characteristics of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is lacking in Chinese communities.

Methods

A random telephone survey of 3006 individuals aged 15–45 years in Hong Kong was conducted using a questionnaire that generated DSM-IV diagnosis and other clinical characteristics of SAD.

Results

3.2% of the participants surveyed met criteria for SAD in the previous year. Their demographic and clinical characteristics are typical. Only 8.7% of sufferers sought medical treatment.

Limitations

No clinical reappraisal was conducted. Severity and comorbidity of SAD were not examined.

Conclusions

SAD is a cross-culturally real illness. The prevalence, chronicity, and under-treatment of SAD in Chinese people calls for further research and efforts to reduce its treatment gap.

Section snippets

Instrument

The study was approved by the research ethics committee of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The survey instrument was devised by considering the DSM-IV criteria for SAD (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the SAD symptom items of the Chinese CIDI used in the World Mental Health Survey (of which the first author was a regional co-ordinator) (Demyttenaere et al., 2004), and local clinical experience with SAD sufferers. Its items covered demography, symptoms, types of fears, avoidance,

Demography and prevalence

3.2% of participants met criteria for SAD in the previous 1 year. The mean duration of the disorder was 12.1 years (S.D. = 8.85), with 30.6% of sufferers having had it for over 15 years. 8.7% sought medical treatment before (Table 1).

Physical symptoms

The percentages of participants with SAD having different physical symptoms were as follows: palpitations (75.3%), blushing (68.6%), voice shaking (46.0%), stammering (41.1%), sweating (43.2%), and hand tremor (34.9%).

Types of fear and impact

On average, SAD sufferers experienced fears in

Discussion

Our findings tally with Western studies showing that SAD is common, early in onset, chronic, comorbid with depressive symptoms, and under-treated (Brunello et al., 2000, Schneier, 2003). They strengthened the cross-cultural disease validity of SAD as well as the feasibility of a preliminary survey methodology using telephone interviews.

Given that SAD is a chronic condition, the 1-year prevalence we found is relatively low compared to lifetime estimates in Western studies (3–15%). However, the

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