Abstract

GURER, Gulcan; SENDUR, Faruk; GULTEKIN, Bulent Kadri  and  OZCAN, Mehmet Erkan. The anxiety between individuals with and without joint hypermobility. Eur. J. Psychiat. [online]. 2010, vol.24, n.4, pp.205-209. ISSN 0213-6163.

Background and Objectives: This study was performed to compare the anxiety disorders between individuals with and without joint hypermobility. Methods: A total of 94 Turkish volunteers, 40 subjects (38 females, 2 males) with joint hypermobility and 54 controls (47 females, 7 males) without joint hypermobility, were included in this study. We evaluated the joint hypermobility by using the Beighton scoring system in the participants and a Beighton score of at least 4 was considered as joint hypermobility. In addition, all cases were evaluated with Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale by a psychiatrist in order to define their psychyatric disorders and anxiety levels, respectively. Results: Age, gender and educational levels of the participants were similar between these two groups. Mean of anxiety score was higher statistically in the study group (13.5 ± 5.3) than that of the control group (11.1 ± 4.9) (p < 0.05). No statistically a significant difference in the ratio of psychyatric disorders according to SCID-I were observed between cases with and without hypermobility. Conclusions: Anxiety scores have been found significantly higher in the group with hypermobility than that of the group without hypermobility. We strongly recommend the assessment of medical conditions, including joint hypermobility syndrome, in anxiety patients.

Keywords : Hypermobility; Anxiety; Depression; Panic disorder; Obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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