4 - Anxiety-Related Disorders Flashcards
What does the diagnosis of anxiety-related disorders depend on?
Patterns of symptoms (nature, frequency, severity and duration)
What are the two keywords related to anxiety-related disorders?
Preoccupation and avoidance
Fear is experienced in the face of real, immediate danger, usually builds quickly in intensity, and helps behavioural responses to real threats. How can anxiety be differentiated from this?
Associated with anticipation of future problems; involves more general or diffuse emotional response; the degree of concern is out of proportion to the threat
What is the cognitive activity associated with anxiety?
Excessive worry; relatively uncontrollable sequence of negative emotional thoughts concerned with future threats or danger (overlapping components of fear, anxiety and worry)
Anxiety can be helpful as it can facilitate actions to prevent threat, but when can it be maladaptive?
When a person allows it to limit their living (avoidance)
Describe the prevalence of anxiety-related disorders in Australia
The most common type of mental disorders; higher rates in women than men; across all age groups but decrease with age; PTSD and social phobia are the most prevalent
What are the main features of all anxiety-related disorders?
Physiological symptoms; avoidance symptoms; disturbances in attention (intrusive thoughts,; attentional biases; re-experiencing symptoms); subjective feeling of anxiety
What are the essential features of specific phobia?
Marked fear or anxiety about specific object or situation; exposure to fearful stimulus provokes instant anxiety; phobic stimulus is actively avoided or endured with intense fear/anxiety; it’s out of proportion to the actual danger; females more affected (rates vary across phobic stimuli)
List some specific phobic specifiers
Animals (spiders/snakes); natural environment (storms/heights); blood-injection injury (needles); situational (public transport/enclosed places); other (loud sounds/vomiting); dentophobia
What are the essential features of social anxiety disorder?
Marked fear/anxiety about one or more social situations in which the person’s exposed to possible scrutiny by others; fear they’ll show anxiety that’ll be negatively evaluated (embarrassment/humiliation/rejection)
What are the clinical features of social anxiety disorder?
Belief that others see them as inept, foolish or stupid; hypersensitive to criticism; non-assertive; low self-esteem; common comorbidity with anxiety; safety behaviours common (avoiding eye contact; talk to safe people; cover face); take observer perspective vantage point for social memories; information processing biases (negative interpretations of social events; less likely to detect positive responses; anticipatory/post-event processing)
According to DSM-5 criteria, a panic disorder is characterised by recurrent unexpected panic attacks. At least one attack has to be followed by one month or more of what?
Persistent concern about additional attacks or their consequences; significant maladaptive changes in behaviour (avoidance)
3.5% of the population experience panic attacks without what?
Meeting criteria for a panic disorder
How is a panic attack characterised?
An abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort in which 4 or more physiological symptoms develop rapidly and peak within minutes (e.g. hot flushes/numbness/fear of dying/shortness of breath/chest pain/nausea)
Agoraphobia is marked by fear or anxiety about two or more of which essential features?
Using public transport; being in open/enclosed spaces; standing in line or in a crowd; being outside of the home alone; being in places from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing
How is generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) characterised by DSM-5?
Excessive anxiety and worry about numerous events or activities; difficult to control worry; experience in 3 or more of: restlessness; easily fatigued; difficulty concentrating; irritability; muscle tension; sleep disturbance; and worry or physical symptoms cause significance interference
What kind of cognitive biases do people with GAD show?
Significantly less tolerance for uncertainty; underestimate their ability to cope with difficult or ambiguous circumstances; overestimate the likelihood of negative consequences
What may contribute to the development of GAD?
Early experiences of uncontrollability and unpredictable negative events
List some other anxiety disorders
Separation anxiety disorder; selective mutism; substance/medication induced; anxiety disorder due to another medical condition; other specified or unspecified anxiety disorder
What is body dysmorphic disorder?
They fixate on a part of their body where there’s a slight or no imperfection
What’s hoarding disorder?
Find it difficult to let things go or dump things even if they’re rubbish
Describe trichotillomania
Hair pulling disorder; can lead to baldness
Describe excoriation
Skin picking to the degree where it causes damage
Describe the obsessions involved in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Thoughts, images or impulses; repetitive, intrusive and uncontrollable (rebound effects); not just excessive worries about real life problems; cause anxiety or distress; compel them to ignore, suppress or neutralise the obsessions in some way