Prevalence of Anxiety Disorder in Adolescents in India: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Anxiety is one of the most common mental disorders in the adolescent age group due to both physiological and psychological changes along with substance use in this age group. Generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and social phobia (or social anxiety disorder) constitute anxiety disorders as per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria. In India, the National Mental Health Survey was conducted to estimate the burden of different mental health disorders, but the adolescent age group was not included in that survey.A comprehensive search strategy was used to find out articles from PubMed and ProQuest, along with a risk of bias assessment using two components of the Quality in Prognosis Studies (QUIPS) tool.The 13 articles included in the meta-analysis were divided into two groups depending on sampling strategy and outcome measurement. Due to more than 99% heterogeneity, the random effect model is used to find the pooled estimate. The pooled prevalence of anxiety disorder among adolescents in India is found to be 0.41 (CI: 0.14-0.96) for studies with more than low risk and 0.29 (CI: 0.11-0.46) for studies with low risk. The Begg and Mazumdar rank correlation test revealed no publication bias in the included studies. One study was found to be an outlier using the Baujat test, but pooled estimate and heterogeneity did not change significantly after its removal from analysis. The weight of individual studies calculated using the random effect model did not show any gross difference.A significant burden of anxiety was found in adolescents in India. Effective intervention should be planned to reduce this burden.