Economic costs of anxiety disorders

The cost of anxiety disorders in the U.S. have been estimated to be between US$42 and US$47 billion per year. This number is about as high as the estimates of the cost of depression (from US$44 to US$53 billion). It includes direct psychiatric treatment as well as unnecessary treatment cost, work performance costs in terms of sickness leave and workcutback days, mortality costs (calculated as lost earnings potential). The true societal costs are much larger: long-term opportunity costs (like unemployment and underemployment)) and costs associated with comorbidity are not included in the above estimate. The opportunity costs alone are likely to exceed US$ 2,000 per year per patient. This would be US$ 100 billion per year for the total U.S. population.

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