The relationship between psychopathologies and distress intolerance beliefs: A comparison of generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder

In recent studies, distress intolerance is considered as a general factor, which is not specific to diagnosis, and it is accepted playing an important role in psychological disorders especially in anxiety disorders. In this study, distress intolerance which is assumed in the literature as an important psychological component of two anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, are compared in accordance with their distress tolerance level and emotional schemas. The aim of this study is first to investigate if the distress intolerance differs between diagnoses, and second if there is a difference to find which components differ. Also, it aims to identify if there are differences between generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder in terms of schemas related to distress. 30 obsessive compulsive disorder patients and 30 generalized anxiety disorder patients who had outpatient treatment in Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Education and Research Hospital Psychiatry Polyclinic, were included to this research. Those 60 patients share similar socio-demographic qualities. The Turkish form of Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons ve Gaher, 2005) was applied to two diagnosis groups to compare the level of distress tolerance. For comparing emotional schemas, the Turkish form of Leahy Emotional Schemas Scale (Leahy, 2002) was used. According to the results, the mean of OCD group is meaningfully higher than the mean of GAD group in two items of the Tolerance subscale in Distress Tolerance Scale and in one item of Expression subscale in Leahy Emotional Schemas Scale. Key Words: distress tolerance, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, emotional schema