Task 3 - Anxiety Disorders Flashcards
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
Definition
A severe and persistent fear of social or performance situations
DSM-5 Criteria for SAD
A. Fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to scrutiny by others
B. The indivudal fear that they will act in a way or show anxiety symptoms that will be negatively evaluated
C. The social situations almost always provoke fear or anxiety
D. The social situation is often avoided
E. The fear is out of proportion to the actual threat
F. Lasting for 6 months or more
G. Causes significant distress
H. Not explained by substances or medical condition I. or mental condition
J. If other condition present, fear is unrelated or excessive
Prevalence of SAD
- Between 4-13% in Western societies, but rates are significantly lower in South-East Asian countries
- A gender prevalence of 3:2 females to males
Genetic Factors of SAD
Constructs related to SAD that have a genetic component are:
* Submissiveness
* Anxiousness
* Social Avoidance
* Behavioral Inhibition
Behavioral inhibition
Definition
A construct used to define the characteristics in some children of seeming quiet, isolated and anxious when confronted either with social situations or with novelty
Familial and developmental factors of SAD
Parents of children with social anxiety disorder:
* Exert greater control over their children
* Show less warmth
* Are less sociable
* Use shame as a method for discipline
Cognitive factors of SAD
- Information processing and interpretation biases
- Overcritical evaluation of their performance in social situations
- Self-focused attention
- Excessive post-event processing
Voncken et al.: Social performance deficits in SAD
- Involved two tasks: a speech and a conversation, which were randomly assigned to participants
- Findings: Found that patients with SAD were characterized by both biased estimations and social performance deficits
Voncken et al.: Interpretation and judgmental biases
- The Interpretation and Judgmental Questionnaire (IJQ) was used to assess interpretation and judgmental biases in social and non-social events
- Findings: Social phobic patients interpreted social events as more negative and judged social events as more threatening compared to the normal control group
- No differences between the two groups in their ratings of non-social events
- These results confirm the hypothesis that interpretation and judgmental biases in social phobia are content-specific
Attention Bias Modification
A therapy for SAD
* Attentional biases toward threatening information are addressed through computer-based ABMT, aiming to redirect attention away from socially threatening stimuli.
* Debate about its viability as a treatment
Panic disorder
Definition
An anxiety disorder characterized by repeated panic or anxiety attacks
Panic attack
Definition
An abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort in which four or more of a list of symptoms (DSM-5) develop suddenly
DSM-5 Criteria for Panic Disorder
A. Recurrent unexpected panic attacks
B. At least one of the attacks has been followed by 1 month or more of persistent concern about additional panic attacks or maladaptive change iin behavio to avoid panicking
C. Not attributable to substances or medical condition or D. Another mental disorder
The role of hyperventilation in Panic Disorder
- Hyperventilation can produce the symptoms of panic attacks that are recognized as anxiety
- Has been supported by studies using biological challenge tests
- This evidence has given rise to suffocation alarm theories
This evidence has given rise to suffocation alarm theories
Definition
Research in which panic attacks are induced by administering carbon dioxide (CO²) enriched
air or by encouraging hyperventilation