Abstract
In Taiwan, students of psychiatric nursing are taught about anxiety disorders as a whole. Consequently, they have vague knowledge of nursing care of specific anxiety disorders.Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has the highest prevalence rate compared to other diseases. Thus, a better understanding of GAD is vital to providing efficient care to most anxiety patients. This article aims to advance the understanding of GAD, including epidemiology, cost, historical background, aetiology, characteristics, help seeking behaviours, treatments, and prognosis. Moreover, the latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM V) provides a clearer view of GAD. Based on this knowledge, nurses can reflect on how more appropriate nursing interventions may be designed. Despite improved medications and claims of efficacy of cognitive behaviour therapies, GAD remains a chronic disease with co-morbidities. Therefore, nurses need to be alert to mood changes, especially in patients with depression. Led by traditional pathological viewpoint. nurses tend to treat anxiety as a negative emotional state and this needs to be reconsidered. If the nursing profession views the patient as a holistic being, it should seek a different view of anxiety, for example, place it in the context of Chinese culture. In this way, patient empowerment can facilitate management of GAD.
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