Anxiety disorders and comorbidities

Any serious diagnosis or illness inevitably triggers feelings of anxiety. Heart attacks, strokes, or cancer findings are drastic life events that lead to uncertainty and leave many anxious questions unanswered. Sometimes, however, the fears take on such proportions that they fulfill the diagnostic criteria of an independent anxiety disorder, and thus additionally severely impair the quality of life. If such an anxiety disorder occurs as a concomitant disease of another underlying disease, this is called comorbidity.

If anxiety or panic attacks occur as a concomitant of a physical illness during an inpatient stay at the University Hospital, the psychiatric consultation and liaison service of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy (PPP) offers assistance. At the request of the attending physician, this service provides immediate help on the ward and advises on further treatment.

In cooperation with the Comprehensive Heart Failure Center (CHFC), which is located here at University Hospital Würzburg, we are investigating the interactions between chronic heart failure and depression and anxiety disorders. Based on the results of the Mood-HF study,  for example, we are looking for more effective therapy combinations, as certain antidepressants are not effective on their own in patients with cardiac insufficiency. In the DaCFail study, we analyze the body's own stressors that occur in depression or anxiety disorders and potentially promote heart failure.

People with rare diseases often have an odyssey of diagnostics behind them before they receive a correct diagnosis.  We know from experience that people with such complex symptoms often have a concomitant mental disorder. As a partner of the Center for Rare Diseases ZESE, we are examining in the project ZSE-DUO whether the simultaneous somatic and psychosomatic treatment of patients with rare diseases improves their well-being.