Comparisons of self-regulation behavior, emotional self-awareness and decision making styles in women with and without generalized anxiety disorder

The purpose of this study was to compare self-regulation behavior, emotional self-awareness and decision making styles in women with and without generalized anxiety disorder. The present study was causal-comparative. The statistical population of this research included all women with generalized anxiety disorder who referred to clinical centers in Rasht in 2015. The sample consisted of 75 patients with generalized anxiety disorder, diagnosed by psychiatrist and 75 normal women that were chosen by convenience sampling. Data were collected, using the anxious thoughts inventory of Wells, self-regulation questionnaire of Brown, Miller and Lawendowski, emotional self-awareness scale of Bar-On and decision making styles questionnaire of Scott and Bruce. The results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that the average scores of the self-regulation, rational and intuitive decision making styles and emotional self-awareness in peoples with generalized anxiety disorder were significantly lower than the peoples without generalized anxiety disorder. Also, the average scores of the avoidant and dependent decision making styles in peoples with generalized anxiety disorder were significantly more than the peoples without generalized anxiety disorder. But, in the average scores of spontaneous decision making styles were not no significantly difference between these two groups. This finding has important implications for pathology of generalized anxiety disorder. Accordingly, professionals can use from these results for the prevention and treatment of generalized anxiety disorder.