The Comparison of Personality Traits, Trait - State Anxiety and Existential Anxiety among Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Normal People

Generalized anxiety disorder is one of the most common anxiety disorders with high prevalence in community and clinical settings. The aim of this study was to compare personality traits, state- trait anxiety and existential anxiety in patients with generalized anxiety disorder and normal individuals.
The research design causal-comparative. The statistical population included all of patients who referred to clinics, psychiatric centers and counseling centers in Urmia and Tabriz cities in the first 6 months of 2015 that among them, 80people were selected by convenience sampling method. This sample was divided into two groups which contain one group of 40 individuals with a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and the group of 40 normal people. Participants completed Short Form of NEO questionnaire, Spielberger's State - Trait Anxiety Inventory and GoodsExistential Anxiety Scale. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the data.
The results showed that the mean scores of neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and trait – state anxiety in patients with generalized anxiety disorder is significantly high. Also no significant differences were observed between groups in mean scores of existential anxiety.
The results indicate importance of personality traits and trait – state anxiety among patients with generalized anxiety disorder.