Journal of anxiety disorders
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Previous research has demonstrated that comorbid obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with greater overall OCD severity, functional impairment, and poorer treatment outcomes (Coles et al., 2008; Lochner et al., 2010; Pinto, 2009). However, research has only examined the effects of OCPD categorically and has yet to thoroughly examine the impact of individual OCPD characteristics dimensionally. Thus, the present study sought to investigate the relationships between various OCPD-related dimensions (e.g., perfectionism, rigidity) and OCD symptomology and severity. ⋯ Findings yielded significant relationships between OCD severity and the following OCPD dimensions: flexibility, doubts about actions (a dimension of perfectionism), and hoarding. Interpretations of these results and the implications for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment outcome are discussed. Furthermore, the current study provides insight into a unique perspective which leaves room for more symptom overlap and variability between OCD and OCPD.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Experimental modification of interpretation bias regarding social and animal fear in children.
Using an experimental bias modification task, an interpretation bias towards or away from threat was induced about animal or social situations in a sample of 103 children split into a young (7-10 years) and old age group (11-15 years). Children rapidly learned to select outcomes of ambiguous situations which were congruent with their assigned modification condition. ⋯ Weak age-related modification-congruent effects on younger but not older children's anxiety vulnerability in response to a behavioral task were also observed. However, no consistent effects of bias modification on avoidance behavior were found.
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The purpose of the present study was to investigate the contribution of threat information as provided by the parents to the development of children's fear within the context of the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic. Normal school children aged 7-12 years (N = 223) and their parents completed questionnaires to measure fear of the Swine Flu and general fearfulness for medical affairs. Children and parents were also asked to indicate to what extent parents had provided children with threat-related information about this disease. ⋯ Further, it was found that parent's transmission of threat information was positively associated with children's fear and that this link remained significant when controlling for other sources of information (i.e., media, friends, and school) or direct experience with the disease. Most importantly, results showed that threat information as provided by the parents played a role in the association between parents' and children's fear. More precisely, support was found for a partial mediation model in which parents' fear of the Swine Flu was related with parents' threat information transmission, which in turn was associated with children's fear of the disease.
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Predisposing personality traits as well as heightened pain sensitivity and fear of pain have been hypothesized as central factors in the development of dental anxiety. The aim of the study was to estimate the heritability of dental anxiety, and to investigate the genetic and environmental sources of covariance between dental anxiety on one hand, and pain sensitivity and the neuroticism trait on the other. A sample comprising 188 twins, aged 23-35 years (53 monozygotic and 39 dizygotic twin pairs, and 4 single twins whose co-twin did not participate), was included in the study. ⋯ Furthermore, a substantial part of the variance in dental anxiety was due to specific genetic and individual environmental influences unrelated to neuroticism. The phenotypic correlations between dental anxiety and the pain sensitivity indices were close to zero. Thus, while neuroticism and dental anxiety share a sizeable proportion of genetic (but not environmental) risk factors, the results also suggest that these two attributes are distinct entities with overlapping, but not identical, etiologies.
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This study examined the relation between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidal ideation among U. S. military veterans deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom and/or Operation Iraqi Freedom. ⋯ PTSD-diagnosed participants with co-occurring MDD or AUD were not significantly more likely to endorse suicidal ideation than PTSD-diagnosed participants without such comorbidity. The 'emotional numbing' cluster of PTSD symptoms and the 'cognitive-affective' cluster of MDD symptoms were uniquely associated with suicidal ideation.