Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
START Clinic for Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Psychiatry Res. 2017 Jun;252:63-69. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.02.046. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
Research suggests that Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is related to the severity of suffering in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). However, its role in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) has not been extensively studied. This study examines IU in a clinical sample of 248 individuals referred to a tertiary care clinic. Few individuals had a diagnosis of pure SAD or pure GAD, but we examined differences of IU scores by diagnostic category. We further examined the relationships between IU scores, social anxiety scores, and worry through a structural equation model. We found that diagnostic category (SAD versus GAD) accounted for little variability in IU scores, but IU scores were strongly related to symptoms of both GAD and SAD. Results highlight that IU is related to both social anxiety and worry; however aspects of IU associated with being unable to act or avoiding uncertainty are more strongly associated with SAD symptoms, whereas aspects of IU more associated with general stress and perceiving uncertainty as unfair are more strongly associated with GAD symptoms. Our results suggest that IU is an important concept for both social anxiety and generalized anxiety, however the relationship between IU and symptoms of these disorders manifests differently.
研究表明，不确定性容忍度（IU）与广泛性焦虑症（GAD）的严重程度有关。然而，它在社交焦虑症（SAD）中的作用尚未得到广泛研究。本研究在一个由 248 名被转诊到三级护理诊所的临床样本中检查了 IU。很少有人被诊断为单纯的 SAD 或单纯的 GAD，但我们通过诊断类别检查了 IU 分数的差异。我们通过结构方程模型进一步检查了 IU 分数、社交焦虑分数和担忧之间的关系。我们发现，诊断类别（SAD 与 GAD）对 IU 分数的变化影响不大，但 IU 分数与 GAD 和 SAD 的症状密切相关。结果表明，IU 与社交焦虑和担忧有关；然而，与无法行动或避免不确定性相关的 IU 方面与 SAD 症状更密切相关，而与一般压力和将不确定性视为不公平相关的 IU 方面与 GAD 症状更密切相关。我们的结果表明，IU 对社交焦虑和广泛性焦虑都是一个重要的概念，然而 IU 与这些疾病症状之间的关系表现不同。
