Leigh Eleanor, Percy Ray, Clark David M, Creswell Cathy, Waite Polly
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.
School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK.
Behav Res Ther. 2023 Oct 14;170:104416. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2023.104416.
A better understanding of the processes that maintain social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adolescents could improve treatment outcomes. This study aimed to establish whether cognitive and behavioural processes known to be important in the maintenance of adult SAD are observed in adolescent populations and whether they are specific to SAD.
We recruited three groups of adolescents (12-18y): (1) 90 adolescents with a SAD diagnosis, (2) 58 adolescents with an anxiety disorder that was not SAD, and (3) 45 community-based adolescents. Participants completed measures of negative social cognitions, social attitudes, safety behaviours, self-focused attention, and social anxiety, anxiety, and depression symptoms.
The clinical SAD sample endorsed higher levels of negative social cognitions, attitudes, and safety behaviours compared to both control groups. Self-focused attention was higher in the clinical SAD sample compared to the anxiety clinical control group but not compared to the community control group.
This study provided evidence of SAD-specific mechanisms including negative social cognitions, attitudes and safety behaviours in adolescents. The study did not provide evidence of disorder-specific mechanisms of self-focused attention but this may have been due to methodological limitations. These findings indicate avenues for further research and point to the potential value of Cognitive Therapy for the treatment of adolescent SAD.
更好地理解维持青少年社交焦虑障碍（SAD）的过程可能会改善治疗效果。本研究旨在确定在成年SAD维持中已知重要的认知和行为过程是否在青少年群体中也存在，以及它们是否为SAD所特有。
我们招募了三组青少年（12 - 18岁）：（1）90名被诊断为SAD的青少年，（2）58名患有非SAD焦虑障碍的青少年，以及（3）45名社区青少年。参与者完成了负面社会认知、社会态度、安全行为、自我关注以及社交焦虑、焦虑和抑郁症状的测量。
与两个对照组相比，临床SAD样本认可更高水平的负面社会认知、态度和安全行为。与焦虑症临床对照组相比，临床SAD样本中的自我关注更高，但与社区对照组相比则不然。
本研究提供了青少年中存在SAD特异性机制的证据，包括负面社会认知、态度和安全行为。该研究没有提供自我关注的障碍特异性机制的证据，但这可能是由于方法学上的局限性。这些发现指出了进一步研究的方向，并表明认知疗法在治疗青少年SAD方面的潜在价值。
