Introduction
These are the approved guidelines published by the South African Society of Psychiatrists to provide an overview on treatment and management of commonly diagnosed psychiatric illnesses. The guidelines include consensus recommendations, based on peer contribution and using the international evidence based guidelines that are suitable for the local South African health service.
Please note that parts of this guideline may be out of date, an update will be published as soon as it is available.
According to epidemiological studies, rates of social anxiety disorder (SAD) or social phobia range from 3% to 16% in the general population.[1,2] Social phobia and specific phobias have an earlier age of onset than other anxiety disorders. The median age of onset for the disorder is 13 years with an onset after age 25 relatively uncommon.The disorder typically persists throughout adult life and is associated with significant functional impairment.[3-5] Individuals with SAD are more likely to be females; however in clinical samples SAD seems to be more equally distributed among men and women.[4]