Comparison of attention bias and emotional processing styles in female students with generalized anxiety disorder, with body dysmorphic disorder and inpatient

• Main Authors: Azam Farahbijari, Abolghasem Mehrinejad, Mahsa Norouzi Nargesi
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Allameh Tabataba'i University Press 2016-10-01
• Series: Muṭāli̒āt-i Ravān/Shināsī-i Bālīnī
• Subjects: generalized anxiety disorder"; "body dysmorphic disorder"; "inpatients"; "attention bias"; "emotional processing styles"
• Online Access: http://jcps.atu.ac.ir/article_6516_7bcde52195782c882008fe320b108287.pdf

Psychological studies suggest that attention bias and distortions in emotional processing are two factors of persistence of many mental disorders. Generalized anxiety disorder and body dysmorphic disorder as if two samples of common emotional disorders in our society that a great majority of people suffer from it. The aim of this study was to compare attention bias and emotional processing styles in patients with generalized anxiety disorder, patients with body dysmorphic disorder, and inpatients. The study sample included 300 female students who available sampling of public universities in Tehran were selected. Instruments used in this study are Beck Anxiety Inventory, Yale-Brown body dysmorphic Inventory, Baker emotional processing questionnaire and dot-probe software test. This study showed that patients with generalized anxiety disorder have negative attention bias more than patients with body dysmorphic disorder and inpatients (p<0.05). And also, patients with body dysmorphic disorder are not affected by attention bias during stimuli perception (p<0.05). In addition, patients with generalized anxiety disorder and patients with body dysmorphic disorder compared to inpatients are more likely to use intrusive, suppression, uncontrolled and dissociation dysfunctional emotional processing styles (p<0.05). From the results, it can be concluded that the rehabilitation and reform of attention bias can be effective in the diagnosis and treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. Also reparation of dysfunctional emotional processing seemed to be useful in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.