Characteristics of worry in GAD patients, social phobics, and controls

Phenomenological features of worry such as thought content, subjective expe rience of worry, and efforts to control were investigated in the present in terview study, as well as retrospective information about possible origins. To examine the clinical specificity of worrying in Generalized Anxiety Dis order (GAD), 36 GAD patients were compared to a normal control group (N = 3 0) and to a clinical control group (N = 22 social phobics). GAD patients di ffered om both groups in having higher frequency of worry, higher number of different worry topics, lower subjective controllability, more accompanyin g bodily symptoms, and move distress during worry. Thus, in general, our da ta confirm the central and specific role of worrying in GAD. Furthermore, i n contrast to other topics, worrying about daily hassles was specific to GA D patients, which represents a lower threshold for starting to worry. (C) 2 001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.