What Are the Best Medication for Treating Anxiety Disorders?

JAMA discusses pharmacotherapy and also psychotherapy as both being important modalities to treat anxiety. The first line interventions for treating across the anxiety disorders with the exception of the performance only type of social anxiety disorder are the SSRI or SNRI antidepressant medications. benzodiazepines have some advantages over antidepressants in terms of their speed of onset and they have a somewhat different side effect profile as well than the SSri or SNRI antidepressants but they also have other associated risks so it's really these risk profile that makes them not a first-line agent.