Meta-Analysis of Prevalence Rates of Anxiety Disorders in Kenya from 2000-2018

Abstract

The goal of this project, was to use the available data from published documents to come up with a pooled e_ect estimate that can inform the Health policy and economic planning in Kenya using Meta-analysis of prevalence.Anxiety disorders have become a silent disease that is slowly taking away the skilled man power and the burdening the society at large as most of the times patients su_er in silent,and most of the times do not consider it as a disease.The study aimed at _nding the pooled prevalence rate of Anxiety disorders in Kenya,investigate heterogeneity among studies,evaluate the degree of association of the substantive variables with the overall e_ect and _nally check whether studies had publication bias.A total of 17 studies were included and the overall prevalence rate was 29% with 95% con_dence interval of (15.3%,44%) and after correcting the publication bias and excluding the outlier studies,the overall prevalence rate of Anxiety disorder in Kenya was 25.12% with 95% con_dence intervals (19.32%,31.40%).Substantial heterogeneity was evident and were explained by some moderator variables and the two outlier studies.It was also established that small studies with small study e_ects tend to be neglected and never get published while large studies with small e_ects have higher chances of getting published..We would recommend further research into the speci_c cases of Anxiety disorders and its impact on patients with lifetime diseases following a prospective study design.