The Effectiveness of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies on the Emotional Processing in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Zare, Hossein; Javandel Someesaraee, Razieh; Zare, Somaye

doi:10.29252/mejds.0.0.106

Volume 12 - Articles-1401 MEJDS (2022) 12: 17 | Back to browse issues page

‎ 10.29252/mejds.0.0.106

‎ 20.1001.1.23222840.1399.0.0.110.9

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Zare H, Javandel Someesaraee R, Zare S. The Effectiveness of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies on the Emotional Processing in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. MEJDS 2022; 12 :17-17
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-1738-en.html

The Effectiveness of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies on the Emotional Processing in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Hossein Zare¹

, Razieh Javandel Someesaraee ^*²

, Somaye Zare¹

1- Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran
2- Payame Noor University, Tehran

Abstract: (1651 Views)

Background & Objectives: Generalized anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by severe anxiety about the usual events of daily life. Excessive anxiety and worry for six months in this disorder can be triggered by various events or activities, such as a job or academic performance. The severity, duration, or frequency of anxiety and worry are disproportionate to the actual probability or impact of the expected event. One of the new approaches that researchers are proposing to prevent and treat vulnerabilities and the development of symptoms of this anxiety disorder is using metacognitive strategies. This approach teaches individuals to break free from the mechanisms that cause them to be stuck in processing by worrying, monitoring threats, and inconsistent self–control and teaches them flexible emotional processing. Since the results of conventional therapies are insufficient to treat people with social anxiety disorder, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies on the emotional processing of patients with generalized anxiety disorder.
Methods: This research is a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest design and a control group. The statistical population consisted of all patients with a generalized anxiety disorder referred to counseling and psychotherapy centers in Rasht City, Iran, between the winter of 2017 and the spring of 2018. Their generalized anxiety disorder was confirmed by counseling and psychologists according to the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Fifth Edition (DSM–5). Thirty of them were randomly selected and assigned to the training and control groups (15 people in each group). In both groups, the Emotional Processing Scale–Revised (Baker et al., 2010) was administered in the pretest and posttest. The experimental group, which included patients with generalized anxiety disorder, underwent metacognitive strategies in ten 90–minute sessions according to the Wells model. The control group did not receive any training at this stage. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency, frequency percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate analysis of covariance, MANCOVA) at a significance level of 0.05 in SPSS version 24.
Results: After controlling the pretest scores, significant differences were found between the experimental group and the control group regarding emotional repression (p˂0.001), poor emotional experience (p = 0.007), unprocessed emotions (p=0.025), and emotional avoidance (p=0.007) in the posttest. These findings showed the effect of teaching metacognitive strategies on reducing these variables. However, no significant difference was observed between the study groups in the posttest regarding the unregulated emotion variable (p=0.344). Also, the effect sizes of emotional repression, poor emotional experience, unprocessed emotions, and emotional avoidance were 0.49, 0.27, 0.20, and 0.27, respectively.
Conclusion: According to the obtained results, teaching metacognitive strategies can help improve emotional processing in patients with generalized anxiety disorder. Also, these strategies can be used to design and develop psychological–based interventions to reduce pervasive anxiety and ultimately improve disease outcomes.

Keywords: Teaching metacognitive strategies, Emotional processing, Generalized anxiety disorder.

Full-Text [PDF 558 kb] (406 Downloads)

Type of Study: Original Research Article | Subject: Psychology

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