By David Wright
A new National Center for Health Statistics report found that about half of health-center visits by youth with a diagnosed anxiety disorder also documented another selected mental health or behavioral condition. The finding supports a broader, individualized assessment rather than assuming anxiety is the whole story.
What the new data actually show
The National Center for Health Statistics examined 2024 health-center visits for youth ages 8 through 18 with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. About 50.3% of those visits also included documentation of at least one selected mental health or behavioral diagnosis: depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a behavioral disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Depression was documented in 35.5% of visits, ADHD in 18.7%, behavioral disorders in 6.4%, and OCD in 1.5%. These categories were not mutually exclusive, so one visit could include more than one additional diagnosis.
The age pattern mattered. Among visits for adolescents ages 13 through 18, 42.8% also documented depression, compared with 12.7% among youth ages 8 through 12. ADHD was documented more often in the younger age group than among adolescents.
Why this matters for families
Anxiety can be the most visible complaint while other clinically important patterns sit beside it. A young person may describe worry, avoidance, physical tension, school refusal, irritability, concentration problems, low motivation, sadness, sleep changes, or changes in behavior. Those experiences can overlap across conditions, and the same symptom can have more than one explanation.
That is why a good assessment should not begin and end with a single label. It should ask what has changed, when it changed, how symptoms interact, how the young person is functioning at school and at home, what stressors are present, what sleep and routines look like, and whether attention, mood, trauma exposure, learning, substance use, medical issues, or family-system factors may also be relevant.
Important limits of the report
The NCHS report describes diagnoses documented during health-center visits. It is not a population-prevalence study of every U.S. child with anxiety, and it cannot prove that anxiety causes depression, ADHD, behavioral disorders, or OCD. It also does not establish the best treatment for an individual child.
The figures are useful because they show how often multiple diagnostic categories appear together in real-world health-center encounters. They are a reminder to avoid oversimplification, not a reason to assume that every anxious child has another disorder.
Screening is a starting point, not the finish line
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for anxiety in children and adolescents ages 8 through 18. Screening can help identify concerns that deserve closer attention, but a positive screen is not the same as a diagnosis. Follow-up diagnostic assessment is needed when screening is positive.
For parents and caregivers, the practical takeaway is to look for patterns in functioning: sleep, school attendance, concentration, friendships, appetite, family life, mood, behavior, avoidance, and physical complaints.
A whole-person next step
Whole-person mental-health care means keeping the individual—not the label—at the center. That can include careful history-taking, coordination with pediatric or primary-care professionals when appropriate, school-based information, family input, behavioral strategies, psychotherapy or other evidence-based care, and attention to sleep, routines, stress load, social connection, movement, and other modifiable factors.
The goal is not to collect diagnoses. The goal is to understand the pattern well enough to choose the next helpful step.
The practical takeaway
If anxiety, mood changes, attention difficulties, behavior changes, sleep disruption, or school problems are interfering with daily life, consider a comprehensive evaluation and a coordinated plan rather than treating one symptom in isolation.
Sources & Further Reading
- National Center for Health Statistics. Codiagnosis of Mental Health or Behavioral Disorders at Health Center Visits by Youth With a Diagnosed Anxiety Disorder: United States, 2024. Data Brief No. 567, August 2026.
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: Screening.
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Educational information only. It does not diagnose a condition or replace individualized medical or mental-health care.
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