Montorio I, Nuevo R, Márquez M, Izal M, Losada A
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Aging Ment Health. 2003 Sep;7(5):334-41. doi: 10.1080/1360786031000150694.
The goals of this study were to analyse the characteristics of the phenomenon of worry in old age, to analyse differential characteristics of worry in the elderly according to severity of anxiety, and to explore the discriminative ability of different DSM-IV criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to reveal the presence of this disorder. Starting from a randomized sample of 97 individuals, those 85 representing three levels of severity of the anxiety were retained: 74 non-clinical, four with sub-threshold anxiety and seven with GAD. They were assessed with different variables typically considered to be relevant for the analysis and characterization of worry. Results indicate that the most remarkable differences in contents of worry as a function of severity of anxiety occurred in the domains of worries about health and personal worries. Furthermore, elderly people with high levels of anxiety worry more frequently, and about more issues, and perceive less control over their worrying. Significant differences between groups in past and present orientation of worry were found. Worries were more frequent in GAD and they were oriented mainly towards the present and minor everyday problems in both GAD and non-clinical people. Moreover, worry about minor things together with the extent to which worry interferes in daily life were the best discriminant variables for GAD, being better than the core DSM-IV GAD criteria. We conclude that this pattern of results suggests that the potential of a specific worry to affect daily well-being and quality of life is strongly related to the presence of a disorder.
本研究的目的是分析老年期担忧现象的特征，根据焦虑严重程度分析老年人担忧的差异特征，并探讨不同的《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》第四版（DSM-IV）广泛性焦虑症（GAD）标准对揭示该疾病存在的判别能力。从97名个体的随机样本开始，保留了代表焦虑严重程度三个水平的85人：74名非临床个体、4名亚阈值焦虑个体和7名广泛性焦虑症患者。他们接受了通常被认为与担忧分析和特征描述相关的不同变量的评估。结果表明，作为焦虑严重程度函数的担忧内容最显著的差异出现在健康担忧和个人担忧领域。此外，焦虑水平高的老年人更频繁地担忧，担忧的问题更多，并且感觉对自己的担忧控制更少。发现不同组在担忧的过去和现在取向方面存在显著差异。广泛性焦虑症患者的担忧更频繁，在广泛性焦虑症患者和非临床个体中，担忧主要针对当下和日常小事。此外，对小事的担忧以及担忧对日常生活的干扰程度是广泛性焦虑症的最佳判别变量，比DSM-IV广泛性焦虑症的核心标准更好。我们得出结论，这种结果模式表明特定担忧影响日常幸福感和生活质量的可能性与疾病的存在密切相关。
