How to Differentiate Generalized Anxiety Disorder from Worry: The Role of Cognitive Strategies

The aim of the current study was to compare adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), high worriers and healthy control adults in terms of cognitive variables. A total of 125 participants, including 32 people with GAD, 43 high worriers and 50 healthy control people, completed questionnaires assessing cognitive avoidance strategies, adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and cognitive fusion. We found that people with GAD and high worriers scored significantly higher on self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing, blaming others, and avoidance of threatening stimuli. They also scored significantly lower on positive refocusing in comparison to the healthy control group. The GAD group significantly scored higher in rumination and avoidance of threatening stimuli and scored significantly lower in positive refocusing, and positive reappraisal in comparison to the high worriers group. These results suggested that individuals with GAD and high worriers, in comparison to healthy control people, and individuals with GAD, in comparison to high worriers, use more maladaptive and less adaptive cognitive strategies. The results of this study could help the researchers better understand some of the cognitive strategies involved in GAD and high worriers and pay more attention to these cognitive variables.