A review of conceptual models for worry and generalized anxiety disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder is a prevalent, chronic and disabling mental disorder. Several biological and psychological factors can contribute to the development and maintenance of worry and generalized anxiety disorder. So far, different behavioral, cognitive, metacognitive and emotional models have been presented about worry and generalized anxiety disorder. Therefore, the aim of this study was review models of worry and generalized anxiety disorder. ScienceDirect, Elsevier, Google Scholar, PubMed, SID and Magiran databases were searched using related keywords and six models were selected from among those published during 1990-2016. In other word, the results showed that cognitive avoidance model (Borkovec, 1994), metacognitive model (Wells, 1995), intolerance of uncertainty model (Dugas, Gagnon, Ladouceur & Freeston, 1998), acceptance-based model (Roemer & Orsillo, 2002), emotional dysregulation model (Mennin, Heimberg, Turk, & Fresco, 2002) and integrative model (Roemer, Orsillo & Barlow, 2002) are six of main models about worry and generalized anxiety disorder. Although the literature review indicates empirical evidence supporting the main component of these models, but there is mixed evidence. Many of these components are not specific of generalized anxiety disorder and occur in many other disorders. In addition, this disorder comorbidity with other disorders is a rule rather than the exception. However, the results of present study are the importance of developing transdiagnostic models.