Being healthy and fit is not just a fad or a trend. Instead, it is a lifestyle. Patient education is the process where a patient’s behaviour gets influenced, and there is the production of changes in knowledge, attitudes and skills appropriate to maintain and improve health. For effective education, cognitive and affective learning need to be stimulated. Cognitive learning is about gathering information and knowledge, while affective learning is about attitude, satisfaction, emotional well-being, and the learner’s beliefs (Slond et al., 2022). The patient is an integral part of a nurse’s role. It has been shown to minimize hospitalization and readmission. Face-to-face education sessions offered by nurses to patients have been seen to be practical as there is an improvement in disease management knowledge (Rice et al., 2018). Anxiety disorders are the most extensive psychiatric disorders associated with a high burden of illness. The familiar anxiety disorders are the specific phobias with a 12-month prevalence of 10.3%, although persons suffering from isolated phobias rarely seek treatments (Bandelow et al., 2022), for this essay will look at the symptoms for the diagnosis of anxiety disorder, the pharmacological treatment of generalized anxiety disorder, and finally look at the nonpharmacological treatments of generalized anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorder is a common and disabling illness often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Patients with anxiety disorder are at high risk of suicides, cardiovascular-rated events, and death (DeMartini et al., 2019). Most patients can be diagnosed and managed by primary care physicians, symptoms include chronic, pervasive anxiety and worry accompanied by nonspecific physical and psychological symptoms (restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, or sleep disturbances), effective treatments include psychotherapy (often cognitive behavioral therapy) and pharmacotherapy, such as selective serotonin reuptake and serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. Generalized anxiety disorder can be determined through diagnostic criteria where excessive anxiety and worry occur more days than not for a minimum of six months, about a number of occasions or activities such as work or school performance, and also the individual cannot control the worry (Crocq, 2022). The anxiety and fear are associated with symptoms such as restlessness, or feeling keyed up or on edge, getting fatigued quickly, mind going blank or difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and unsatisfying sleep. Generalized anxiety disorder can only be dragonized if other anxiety disorders do not sufficiently explain the anxiety. Also, a generalized anxiety disorder cannot be caused straightly by stressors or trauma, contrary to adjustment disorder and PSTD.