Investigating the relationships of emotional schema, cognitive-behavioral avoidance and cognitive-affective system with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder

Emotional schema، cognitive-behavioral avoidance and cognitive-affective system have important role in generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This study was aimed to compare emotional schema، cognitive-behavioral avoidance and cognitive-affective system among patients with generalized anxiety disorder، obsessive-compulsive disorder and healthy people. In an analytic retrospective study، 38 outpatients with generalized anxiety disorder and 35 outpatients with obsessive-compulsive disorder who attended to psychiatric clinic of Ebne-Sina hospital and four private psychiatric centers of Mashhad city and 58 healthy persons among staffs and students of these centers were selected for convenience sampling. Data were collected by the Brief Core Schema Scales (BCSS)، the Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale (CBAS)، the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS)، Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and Anxiety Sensitivity Index-revised (ASI-R)، and then were statistically judged by appropriate tests. According to self-schema، all kinds of cognitive-behavioral avoidance، intolerance of uncertainty، pathological worry and anxiety sensitivity، there was significantly difference among three groups (P<0. 001). There wasn’t significantly difference among three groups in terms of other-schema and wasn’t significantly difference between obsessive-compulsive group and healthy persons based upon fear of respiratory symptoms (P>0. 05). In regards to higher negative self-schema، cognitive-behavioral avoidance، and deficient cognitive-affective system (intolerance of uncertainty، worry and anxiety sensitivity) in patients with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder than healthy group. Therefore، it is necessity to pay attention for tailored interventions in these specific symptoms of such disorders.