The relationship between anxiety level and difficulties in emotion regulation and irrational beliefs in patients diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder

The main aim of this study is to examine the relationship between anxiety level and difficulties in emotion regulation and irrational beliefs in Generalised Anxiety Disorder, which is common in the society. Another aim of the study is to examine the predictive power of emotion dysregulation and irrational beliefs in Generalised Anxiety Disorder. In addition, another aim of the study was to examine whether the variables differed with some socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. In this context, a total of 97 individuals, 67 females and 30 males, aged between 18-49 years, diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and without a comorbid psychiatric disorder, were included in the study. The Severity Scale for Generalised Anxiety Disorder was used to measure the severity of Generalised Anxiety Disorder, the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form was used to measure difficulty in emotion regulation, and the General Attitudes and Beliefs Scale-Short Form was used to measure irrational beliefs. The data were analysed by independent groups t-test, correlation and regression analyses with SPSS 25 package programme and mediation analyses with SPSS PROCESS macro plug-in. As a result of the analyses, significant positive correlations were observed between Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Irrational Beliefs and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. According to the regression analysis, emotion dysregulation predicts Generalised Anxiety Disorder through Goals and Nonacceptance sub-dimensions, and irrational beliefs predict Generalised Anxiety Disorder through Comfort Seeking and Justice Expectancy sub-dimensions. In addition, difficulty in emotion regulation was found to have a mediating role in the relationship between irrational beliefs and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. The results obtained were discussed in the light of the literature.