Anxious Depression Statistics

Understanding comorbidity with anxiety and depression means learning about the different ways these symptoms present themselves. Depression affects one out of every six adults in the United States each year. And of those, between 60-90% also experience some amount of anxious distress. As anxious depression has been recognized as a subtype of depression in the last decade, a review of anxious depression statistics can help paint a clearer picture.

What is Anxious Depression?

Anxiety and depression comorbidity is common, but symptoms of these disorders can also develop into anxious depression. This is a subtype of major depression featuring at least two of the following symptoms of anxious distress:

•     Feeling keyed up or tense
•     Feeling restless
•     Having trouble concentrating due to worry
•     Fear of bad things happening
•     Fear of losing control of oneself

The low mood and low self-worth that comes with depression can negatively impact a person in many ways. But when their anticipation of negative events triggers anxiety, distress may build up.

How Can Anxious Depression Impact Your Life?

Anxious depression is often more challenging to treat than non-anxious depression. These anxious depression statistics show how distress can impact a person’s life:

Remission and treatment

•     For 68% of people with depression and anxious distress, the anxiety symptoms developed before the depressive ones. 25% develop both types of symptoms at the same time.
•   Remission can take up to two weeks longer than for non-anxious depression.
•   Remission is also less likely. 10-13% fewer people with depression go into remission if they also have anxious distress.
•     It may take more time and attempts to find treatments that work. Using more than one medication can be helpful for treatment-resistant depression.
•     People with anxious depression are more likely to only get partial relief than people with non-anxious depression. 
•     With anxious distress, a person’s current episode of depression may last up to six weeks longer.

Impairment from anxious depression

A person is more likely to feel more impaired by anxious depression. The reasons are still being explored but may include a combination of factors:

•     People with anxious depression are more likely to have poorer health and multiple medical conditions.
•     Sleep problems are 20% more likely, especially insomnia. The severity of a person’s sleep issues seems to be tied to the number of anxious distress symptoms.
•     Having anxious depression is also linked with unemployment, lower economic status, and being retired.
•     With anxious depression, a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease is between 1.5 and 2.5 times higher than a person without depression.
•     A person with anxious depression is more likely to have suicidal ideation, attempt suicide, and have more depressive episodes than a person with non-anxious depression.

Who Is Affected By Anxious Depression?

•     Anxious depression affects both men and women, but two thirds of all adults with the disorder are women.
•     Individuals who are married, divorced, or widowed are more likely to be affected than people who are single. 
•     A history of psychological trauma or abuse also raises a person’s chances of developing anxious depression.

Men With Anxious Depression

•     Are less likely to seek treatment for depression.
•     Have a higher risk for excessive drinking or drug use.
•     Are more likely to appear angry or irritable.
•   Attempt suicide less often but are more likely to end in the patient’s death.

Women With Anxious Depression

•     Are more likely to appear sad or blame themselves.
•     Are at greater risk for developing other anxiety-related disorders.
•     Carry out more suicide attempts or acts of self-harm.
•     Report more physical concerns such as weight gain, sleeping too much (hypersomnia), and pain.
•     Are more likely to seek treatment than men.

Women have an additional risk for mood disorders during and after pregnancy, with the greatest risk coming in the first trimester. Their odds of becoming symptomatic decline as they get closer to giving birth, then increase again after the first eight weeks. Up to 51% of the women with perinatal depression may also have severe or moderate anxious distress.

Children And Adolescents

One study on pediatric depression found that a third of their participants also reported anxious distress. Girls were more affected than boys, and those with anxious depression had more severe symptoms, more depressive episodes, and a higher risk for suicide.

Older Adults

For older adults, anxious depression often presents with more severe symptoms, physical discomforts, and poorer social functioning. Older adulthood also comes with challenges that can make symptoms worse such as grief and declining health.