Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Anxiety
Excessive, persistent worry and fear
HP:0000739
What it means
Intense feelings of nervousness, tension, or panic often arise in response to interpersonal stresses. There is worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities. Individuals may feel fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty, and they may also have fears of falling apart or losing control.
In everyday care
Most people with this sign do not have a rare disease — it appears in common conditions far more often. These general reference pages cover the same topic:
Rare diseases that can present with this196
Very common80–99%
13- Adiposis dolorosa
- Autosomal dominant hypocalcemia
- Distal Xq28 microduplication syndrome
- Familial Alzheimer-like prion disease
- Hartnup disease
- Oculocerebrorenal syndrome of Lowe
- Posterior cortical atrophy
- Prader-Willi syndrome
- Rabies
- Smith-Magenis syndrome
- Stiff person spectrum disorder
- Williams syndrome
- Wolfram-like syndrome
Common30–79%
67- 11q22.2q22.3microdeletion syndrome
- 17p11.2microduplication syndrome
- 17q24.2microdeletion syndrome
- 22q11.2deletion syndrome
- 48,XXYY syndrome
- 7q11.23microduplication syndrome
- Acquired methemoglobinemia
- Acromegaly
- Adrenocortical carcinoma
- Alazami syndrome
- Alobar holoprosencephaly
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Arginine vasopressin deficiency
- Autoimmune limbic encephalitis
- Autosomal dominant dopa-responsive dystonia
- Autosomal recessive generalized dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, severe form
- Barth syndrome
- Bilateral striopallidodentate calcinosis
- Burning mouth syndrome
- Childhood disintegrative disorder
- Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome
- Cornelia de Lange syndrome
- Cushing syndrome due to ectopic ACTH secretion
- Developmental and speech delay due to SOX5 deficiency
- Distal 7q11.23 microduplication syndrome
- Dravet syndrome
- DYRK1A-related intellectual disability syndrome
- Facial dysmorphism-developmental delay-behavioral abnormalities syndrome due to 10p11.21p12.31 microdeletion
- Facial dysmorphism-developmental delay-behavioral abnormalities syndrome due to WAC point mutation
- Familial colorectal cancer Type X
- Fatal familial insomnia
- FOXP1 Syndrome
- Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome
- Glossopharyngeal neuralgia
- GM2 gangliosidosis, AB variant
- Helsmoortel-Van der Aa syndrome
- Huntington disease
- Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
- Inherited Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- Intellectual disability syndrome due to a DYRK1A point mutation
- Kleine-Levin syndrome
- Lobar holoprosencephaly
- Lynch syndrome
- Macrocephaly-developmental delay syndrome
- Macrocephaly-intellectual disability-left ventricular non compaction syndrome
- Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome
- MELAS
- Midline interhemispheric variant of holoprosencephaly
- Mitochondrial myopathy-cerebellar ataxia-pigmentary retinopathy syndrome
- Monosomy X syndrome
- Mosaic monosomy X syndrome
- Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2
- Multiple system atrophy, cerebellar type
- Multiple system atrophy, parkinsonian type
- Myoclonus-dystonia syndrome
- Narcolepsy type 1
- NMDA receptor encephalitis
- Normosmic congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism
- Norrie disease
- Osteogenesis imperfecta
- PCDH19 clustering epilepsy
- Pemphigus vulgaris
- Periodontal Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
- Plague
- Primary Sjögren disease
- PRKAR1B-related neurodegenerative dementia with intermediate filaments
- Progressive non-fluent aphasia
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions, and Orphanet separately records 2 diseases where this sign is specifically absent. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Anxiety disease · Anxiousness
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.