"They will turn to the Lord, and He will respond to their pleas and heal them."
Isaiah 19:22
Isaiah 19:22
Social anxiety disorder is starting to affect more teenagers and so researchers turned their attention to it. They describe this disorder as an disabling psychiatric condition in which a person becomes excessive self-consciousness and is overwhelmed by anxiety in everyday activities. This disorder can manifest with or without the presence of shyness as researcher from the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have claimed.
Social anxiety disorder is not the same thing as shyness, a new national study reveals. There has been much debate over the fact that doctors decided to rename more extreme versions of shyness to social anxiety disorder in order to increase sales. This is the main reason why Dr Marcy Burstein, and colleagues at NIMH have done this study, they want to show the world that these two concepts are very different and must be treated as such.
Their study consists in 1000 face to face surveys made on teen age persons with ages between 13 and 18. The goal of the study is to see where the border between shyness and social anxiety disorder ends. After completing the study and analyzing the data the results looked very interesting. Results show that nearly half of the teen agers who took part in this study admitted they were shy but only 12 percent of them were diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. The difference between these two groups is visible most in their relations with family and friends, work and school. Very few persons from all the people interviewed for the study admitted that they were under some sort of treatment.
The study concluded that shyness and social anxiety disorder are two very different concepts. Even though people who suffer from social anxiety disorder has more damaging effect in many fields and it is likely to develop in time into other psychiatric disorders, they receive the same treatment as the ones who are shy. This fact raises awareness among doctors that patients who suffer from social anxiety disorder are not treated properly. Doctors hope that in the near future teenagers will be able to be diagnoses properly and be prescribed the correct treatment.
