F41 vs F43
F43 — Reaction to severe stress, and adjustment disorders
Distinguish generalized anxiety disorder's persistent, free-floating worry from an adjustment disorder's more recent reaction to an identifiable stressor.
This is just for your own thinking. It is never submitted, sent, or stored anywhere — it disappears the moment you leave or reload this page.
Show overlap — what both share
Both can present with prominent anxiety symptoms and worry affecting daily functioning.
Show decisive evidence
- Generalized anxiety disorder requires a persistent, free-floating pattern of worry across multiple life domains, most days, for months, without necessarily any single identifiable precipitant.
- Adjustment disorder requires a clear, identifiable precipitating stressor, with onset typically within about a month of it, and a course that usually resolves within six months.
- A vignette's timeline relative to a specific stressor, and the breadth of the worry (multiple unrelated domains versus concentrated around the stressor), are the decisive facts.
What weakens F41: Evidence of a clear, recent, identifiable precipitating stressor with a shorter timeline weakens generalized anxiety disorder and favours adjustment disorder; evidence of months-long, pervasive, multi-domain worry without a clear single precipitant weakens adjustment disorder and favours generalized anxiety disorder.
Show duration / course
Generalized anxiety disorder: most days, for months. Adjustment disorder: onset within about a month of an identifiable stressor, usually resolving within six months.
Show exclusions / context
The presence and timing of a specific precipitating stressor is the decisive fact — generalized anxiety disorder does not require one, while adjustment disorder specifically does.
Show information still needed
Whether there is a clear, identifiable, recent precipitating stressor, and how long the worry has actually persisted and across how many life domains.
Show the common trap
Diagnosing generalized anxiety disorder from a short, recent episode of worry tied to an identifiable stressor, without checking the months-long, multi-domain pattern actually required.
Mini challenge — practise this distinction
Apply the discriminating evidence above to a fresh case before checking the full feedback.