An update to the Generalized Anxiety Disorder–a sign of the times bibliography …
Featured articles (these articles have been added to the Bibliography and to the Science Primary Literature database):
*Carl, E., Witcraft, S. M., Kauffman, B. Y., Gillespie, E. M., Becker, E. S., Cuijpers, P., . . . Powers, M. B. (2020). Psychological and pharmacological treatments for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 49(1), 1-21. [Cited by]
“The purpose of this meta-analysis was to provide updated pooled effect sizes of evidence-based psychotherapies and medications for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and to investigate potential moderators of outcomes. Seventy-nine randomized controlled trials (RCT) including 11,002 participants with a diagnosis of GAD were included in a meta-analysis that tested the efficacy of psychotherapies or medications for GAD. Psychotherapy showed a medium to large effect size (g = 0.76) and medication showed a small effect size (g = 0.38) on GAD outcomes. Psychotherapy also showed a medium effect on depression outcomes (g = 0.64) as did medications (g = 0.59). Younger age was associated with a larger effect size for psychotherapy (p < 0.05). There was evidence of publication bias in psychotherapy studies. This analysis found a medium to large effect for empirically supported psychotherapy interventions on GAD outcomes and a small effect for medications on GAD outcomes. Both groups showed a medium effect on depression outcomes. Because medication studies had more placebo control conditions than inactive conditions compared to psychotherapy studies, effect sizes between the domains should not be compared directly. Patient age should be further investigated as a potential moderator in psychotherapy outcomes in GAD.”
*Singh, P., Cumberland, W. G., Ugarte, D., Bruckner, T., & Young, S. D. (2020). Association between generalized anxiety disorder scores and online activity among US adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-sectional analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(9), 7. [PDF]
“Background: Evidence from past pandemics suggests that fear, uncertainty, and loss of control during large-scale public health crises may lead to increased pandemic-related information seeking, particularly among persons predisposed to high anxiety. In such groups, a greater consumption of information pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic may increase anxiety.
Objective: In this study, we examine the association between online activity and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7) scores in the United States.
Methods: We recruited participants for an online survey through advertisements on various platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Reddit. A total of 406 adult US participants with moderate to severe (≥10) GAD-7 scores met the inclusion criteria and completed the survey. Anxiety levels measured using the GAD-7 scale formed our primary outcome. Our key independent variables were average daily time spent online and average daily time spent online searching about COVID-19 within the past 14 days. We used as controls potential confounders of the relation between our key independent variables and GAD-7 scores, namely, sleep quality, the COVID-19 Fear Inventory scale, binge drinking, substance use, prescription drug abuse, and sociodemographic attributes.
Results: Linear multivariate regression analyses showed that GAD-7 scores were higher among those who spent >4 hours online (per day) searching for information about COVID-19 (coefficient 1.29, P=.002), controlling for all other covariates. The total time spent online was not statistically associated with GAD-7 scores.
Conclusions: Results from this study indicate that limiting pandemic-related online information seeking may aid anxiety management in our study population.”
Questions? Please let me know (engelk@grinnell.edu).
