Most patients with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) present other psychiatric disorders. The lifetime prevalence of comorbidities has been reported to range from 52% to 92% in epidemiological studies. There is some evidence showing that the frequency of comorbidities varies according to subtype and severity of SAD and those subjects with subclinical SAD present intermediate values.

The study consisted of the evaluation of psychiatric comorbidities in 355 volunteers, all of them college students who had been diagnosed as SAD (N=141), Controls (N=92) or Subclinical (N=122) in a previous study. The groups were balanced regarding age, sex and socioeconomic level. Three interviewing psychiatrists, blind to the group to which the volunteers belonged, applied the SCID for the DSM-IV.

The rate of comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders was 71.6% in the SAD group and 50% in subjects with Subclinical SAD and differed significantly from the Controls (28.7%). These results confirm in a Brazilian sample of college students the results of other epidemiological and clinical studies on the existence of high levels of lifetime comorbidity in SAD.

The presence of comorbidities increased progressively according to SAD subtype and severity, with the rates for subclinical subjects being intermediate, with lower values than subjects with circumscribed SAD or with mild cases of SAD, but significantly higher than control.

The rates of psychiatric comorbidity increase progressively along the spectrum of social anxiety. Further studies are needed to determine the consequences of this association.