General Hospital Psychiatry

This study aimed to find out whether having joint hypermobility syndrome (JHS) increases the risk of developing anxiety disorders.  They recruited 158 people from a village in Spain who were part of a larger long term study.  These people were assessed at age 16-20 and again 15 years later for JHS and various types of anxiety disorder (only 137 remained suitable for the study after 15 years).  This allowed the authors to look at development of anxiety disorders over 15 years in people with and without JHS.

The authors found that, in the population they studied, people with JHS were significantly more likely to have panic/agoraphobia disorder or social phobia than people without JHS.  People with JHS were also four times more likely to take anti-anxiety medication than the control group.

Published by: Elsivier.

Read the whole article here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163834311001113

Antoni Bulbena, Jordi Gago, Guillem Pailhez, Lili Sperry, Miquel A. Fullana and Oscar Vilarroya.  General Hospital Psychiatry Volume 33, Issue 4, July–August 2011, Pages 363-370

doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2011.03.004