Instituto de Psiquiatria, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
Instituto de Psiquiatria, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Psychopathology. 2019;52(6):327-333. doi: 10.1159/000503395. Epub 2020 Jan 22.
Although anxiety and impulsivity are intuitively thought to be inversely correlated, increased impulsivity has been associated both with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) diagnosis and GAD symptoms in non-clinical samples. The emotional dysregulation model of GAD posits that patients experience more frequent and intense negative emotions while having poor regulatory control over emotional states and greater negative reactivity to their emotions. We hypothesized that poor regulatory control in the presence of negative emotions might explain the increased impulsivity found in GAD patients. In this study, we examined if negative affect mediates the relationship between GAD and impulsivity.
Thirty-four GAD patients and 35 healthy controls were included, and evaluated with measurements of impulsivity, negative and positive emotions, the severity of worrying and GAD symptoms, depression, and 5-factor personality traits.
Global impulsivity scores and the attentional facet of impulsivity were higher in the patient group when compared to the controls. Negative affect was correlated with global impulsivity in the patient group only and explained impulsivity in our regression model while worrying and depressive symptoms did not. An indirect relationship was found between diagnosis and impulsivity through negative affect.
Our study showed that the cardinal symptom of GAD - worrying - was not independently related to impulsivity in our sample. Increased impulsivity in GAD seems to be mediated by the increased presence of negative emotions, as it is common in mood and impulse-control disorders, indicating an unspecific shared vulnerability factor to psychopathology.
尽管焦虑和冲动通常被认为是负相关的，但在非临床样本中，冲动性增加与广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）的诊断和 GAD 症状都有关。GAD 的情绪调节障碍模型假设，患者在情绪状态的调节控制较差且对情绪的负性反应更大的情况下，会更频繁和强烈地体验到负性情绪。我们假设在存在负性情绪的情况下，调节控制不佳可能解释了 GAD 患者中发现的冲动性增加。在这项研究中，我们研究了负性情绪是否在 GAD 和冲动性之间起中介作用。
共纳入 34 名 GAD 患者和 35 名健康对照者，评估了冲动性、负性和正性情绪、担忧的严重程度和 GAD 症状、抑郁以及 5 因素人格特质。
与对照组相比，患者组的总体冲动性评分和冲动性的注意方面评分更高。只有在患者组中，负性情绪与总体冲动性相关，并在我们的回归模型中解释了冲动性，而担忧和抑郁症状则没有。通过负性情绪，在诊断和冲动性之间发现了间接关系。
我们的研究表明，GAD 的主要症状 - 担忧 - 在我们的样本中与冲动性没有独立关系。GAD 中增加的冲动性似乎是由负性情绪的增加介导的，因为这在心境和冲动控制障碍中很常见，这表明存在一种与精神病理学相关的非特异性共享易感性因素。
