title: Can levels of a general anxiety-prone cognitive style distinguish between various anxiety disorders?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The question of whether certain anxiety disorders are especially related to a cognitive style characterized by an exaggerated perception of threat and appraisal of the future as excessively unpredictable (general anxiety-prone cognitive style) remains open.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to compare patients with generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA), and panic disorder without agoraphobia (PD) in terms of the levels of general anxiety-prone cognitive style when the severity of general distress and psychopathology is controlled for and to ascertain whether a co-occurring depressive disorder contributes substantially to the levels of this cognitive style.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Anxious Thoughts and Tendencies Scale, a measure of a general anxiety-prone cognitive style, and Symptom Checklist 90-Revised were administered to 204 patients with various anxiety disorders who attended an outpatient anxiety disorders clinic and were diagnosed based on a semistructured diagnostic interview.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with principal diagnoses of SAD and GAD had a more prominent general anxiety-prone cognitive style than patients with principal diagnoses of PD and PDA when the severity of general distress and psychopathology was controlled for. The presence or absence of a co-occurring depressive disorder had no bearing on this finding.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The general cognitive component characterizes SAD and GAD more than it does PD and PDA, and a co-occurring depressive disorder does not affect this finding. These results have implications for distinguishing between various anxiety disorders.
authors.affiliation: University of Sydney, Sydney Medical School, Discipline of Psychological Medicine, Sydney, NSW, Australia. starcev@wahs.nsw.gov.au
authors.forename: Vladan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Starcevic
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sammut
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berle
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hannan
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Milicevic
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moses
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lamplugh
authors.forename: Guy D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Eslick
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009517:New South Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors