The relationship between socioeconomic status and the level of anxiety

Abstract

Background: Anxiety is a mental health condition that is really common between general population and it has a huge impact on people's daily life. It develops as a result of cognitive mechanisms generated as an answer to a chronic stress state that is considered a threat by the person's brain. Nowadays, in Spain, we live in a neoliberal society where there is huge social inequality present in every field of our day-to-day life, being the 4th country with a higher rate of social imbalances of Europe. It is known that inequality creates an unsafe and insecure environment as well as stress in that most affected population, making them more prone to developing a mental health condition. To analyse and evaluate this social and economic context impact on anxiety prevalence,

we will be comparing those values and anxiety levels between people with a low socio- economic status and those with a higher one.

People whose socio-economic status is low are widely and more exposed to those stressors that inequality generates than people of a higher social class. Taking in consideration all these reasons, our hypothesis will state that people with a low SES suffer from considerably higher levels of anxiety than people with a high SES.

Objective: To determine the relationship between socio-economic status level and anxiety prevalence in general population in Girona and Salt.

Study design: Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted between January and December 2021 in Girona, Spain.

Participants: The study population will be conformed of all the population between 18 and 60 years old who attend to the targeted CAP during the year of study