The Psychopathology of Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Roles of Pathological Worry, Attentional Bias, and Meta-Cognition
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Teng, Min-Hung
Abstract
Pathological worry was the cardinal diagnostic feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In this study, we focused on the roles of attentional bias and meta-cognition in maintaining pathological worrying. In study 1, normal participants (n = 36) were randomly assigned to one of two attentional training conditions, with aims to induce attention toward threatening stimuli/neutral stimuli, respectively. All participants received a mental stress task after their respective attentional training phase. The results showed that greater anxiety, higher heart rate, and lower parasympathetic reactivity were observed for participants trained to attend toward threatening stimuli. In study 2, we further clarified two different patterns of attention mechanisms in subclinical GAD participants. Besides, the relations among the two patterns of attentional bias, the intensity of worry, and the meta-cognitions toward worry were also investigated. Subclinical GAD participants (n = 42) and normal participants (n = 47) were screened by Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). After receiving baseline random dot-probe task, participants in each group were randomly assigned to three different attentional training conditions (attended to threatening stimuli, to neutral stimuli, or to positive stimuli) before worry-induction task. There were some main findings: (1) Subclinical GAD participants showed difficulty disengagement away from threatening stimuli and from positive stimuli compared to normal participants. (2) The extent of the difficulty disengagement was decreased in subclinical GAD participants who were trained to attend toward neutral stimuli. (3) Subclinical GAD participants showed lower parasympathetic reactivity compared to normal participants. (4) Normal participants trained to attend toward threatening stimuli showed lower parasympathetic reactivity during worry induction. (5) Negative meta-cognition (worry was uncontrollable or harmful) was correlated with the intensity of pathological worry and with the extent of difficulty disengagement away from threatening stimuli. The latent mechanisms among attentional bias and meta-cognitions regarding the maintenance of intensity of worry, and the implications of the results for treating pathological worriers or GAD patients are discussed.
Subjects
GAD
worry
attentional bias
attentional training
autonomic reactivity
HRV
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-99-D92227004-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):2fe9abc36295722e3943be965261829b