Concealing, tolerating, and adjusting to emotions in obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: Although research has shown that mood and anxiety disorders manifest disturbed emotion regulation, it is unclear whether anxiety disorders differ from each other in terms of their emotion regulation strategies. In the present study, we investigated whether patients with anxiety disorders present different affective styles.

Methods: We assessed the affective styles of 32 obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, 29 social anxiety disorder (SAD) patients, 29 panic disorder (PD) patients, and 20 healthy controls using the Affective Style Questionnaire (ASQ). A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to compare affective styles across groups (OCD, SAD, PD, and control), while controlling for depression, anxiety symptoms, and age.

Results: The MANCOVA revealed a significant, small-medium, main effect of diagnostic group on affective styles. The planned contrasts revealed that OCD and SAD patients reported significantly lower scores for "tolerance" (ASQ-T) compared to the healthy controls. There were no differences between the PD group and healthy controls.

Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that individuals with OCD and SAD have difficulty tolerating strong emotions existing in the present moment in an open and non-defensive way.

Keywords: ASQ; OCD; affective style; anxiety disorders; emotion regulation.