A Preliminary Investigation of Stimulus Control Training for Worry: Effects on Anxiety and Insomnia

For individuals with generalized anxiety disorder, worry becomes associated with numerous aspects of life (e.g., time of day, specific stimuli, environmental cues) and is thus under poor discriminative stimulus control (SC). In addition, excessive worry is associated with anxiety, depressed mood, an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavior modification 2013-01, Vol.37 (1), p.90-112
Main Authors: McGowan, Sarah Kate, Behar, Evelyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Affect
Anxiety
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety Disorders - diagnosis
Anxiety Disorders - therapy
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Behavior Therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Cues
Depression (Psychology)
Depression - complications
Depression - therapy
Discrimination Learning
Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes
Emotional Problems
Female
Humans
Insomnia
Male
Measures (Individuals)
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes)
Neurology
Outcomes of Treatment
Personality disorders
Psychological Patterns
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Sleep
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - complications
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - therapy
Stimuli
Symptoms (Individual Disorders)
Training
Training Methods
Worry
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:For individuals with generalized anxiety disorder, worry becomes associated with numerous aspects of life (e.g., time of day, specific stimuli, environmental cues) and is thus under poor discriminative stimulus control (SC). In addition, excessive worry is associated with anxiety, depressed mood, and sleep difficulties. This investigation sought to provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of SC procedures in reducing anxiety-, mood-, and sleep-related symptoms. A total of 53 participants with high trait worry were randomly assigned to receive 2 weeks of either SC training (consisting of a 30-min time- and place-restricted worry period each day) or a control condition called focused worry (FW; consisting of instructions to not avoid naturally occurring worry so that worry and anxiety would not paradoxically increase). At post-training, SC was superior to FW in producing reductions on measures of worry, anxiety, negative affect, and insomnia, but not on measures of depression or positive affect. Moreover, SC was superior to FW in producing clinically significant change on measures of worry and anxiety. Results provide preliminary support for the use of SC training techniques in larger treatment packages for individuals who experience high levels of worry.
ISSN:0145-4455
1552-4167
DOI:10.1177/0145445512455661