Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Negative and Positive Automatic thoughts in Social Anxiety Disorder.

BACKGROUND: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by fear and avoidance in social situations where one is exposed to scrutiny by others. It is possible that automatic thoughts either cause the disorder or maintain it, and thus their examination is warranted.

METHOD: 30 SAD subjects diagnosed with the MiniInternational Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and 30 healthy controls were administered the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaires (ATQ-Negative and ATQ-Positive), the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). It was hypothesized that the SAD subjects would display more depression and disability, more negative automatic thoughts and fewer positive automatic thoughts than the healthy controls, and that the automatic thoughts will predict the severity of SAD.

RESULTS: SAD patients had higher scores of depression and disability, higher scores on the ATQ-Negative questionnaire and lower scores on the ATQ-Positive questionnaire. The scores of the LSAS subscales were predicted by the scores of the ATQ-Positive and the BDI questionnaires.

LIMITATIONS: Moderate sample size and limits of the questionnaires used in the study.

CONCLUSIONS: Automatic thoughts may be an important area of research with larger samples. Further studies should be carried out in order to examine if strengthening positive thinking and ablation of negative thinking can reduce SAD symptoms during cognitive behavioral treatment.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app