preview

A Community Mental Health Team While Working With A Client With Generalized Anxiety Disorder ( Gad )

Better Essays

Introduction

This literature review and research proposal was motivated following a practice placement with a Community Mental Health Team while working with a client with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). GAD is a long-term condition that causes someone to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event. GAD is a common mental health condition affecting 1 in every 25 people in the United Kingdom, its prevalence is slightly more among women than men and individuals between the ages of 35 and 55 (NHSChoices, 2014). People with GAD feel anxious most days and often struggle to remember the last time they felt relaxed (NHSChoices, 2014). Feeling anxious is a normal response to stressful experiences, however when anxiety is prolonged, inappropriate, and/or overwhelming to the point that it impacts on functioning, it becomes a pathological disorder (Davis, 2011). The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (APA, 2000). Studies have shown that GAD is more impairing than other anxiety disorders (Hoffmann et al., 2009); and people afflicted with GAD have reported significantly less satisfaction with their quality of life in particular in the domains of self-esteem, goals and values, money, work, play, learning, creativity, friends and family (Henning et al., 2007). Thus GAD has a disabling impact on an individual’s occupation performance

Get Access