Treating ethnic minority adults with anxiety disorders: current status and future recommendations

Abstract

The past three decades have witnessed an increase in the number of empirical investigations examining the phenomenology of anxiety and related conditions. There has also been an increase in efforts to understand differences that may exist between ethnic groups in the expression of the anxiety disorders. In addition, there is now substantial evidence that a variety of treatment approaches (most notably behavioral and cognitive behavioral) are efficacious in remediating anxiety. However, there continues to be comparatively few treatment outcome studies investigating the efficacy of anxiety treatments among minority populations. In this paper, we review the extant treatment outcome research for African American, Hispanic/Latino[a] American, Asian American, and Native Americans suffering with one of the anxiety disorders. We discuss some of the specific problems with the research in this area, and then provide specific recommendations for conducting treatment outcome research with minority populations in the future.