Sleep Med Psychophysiol.  1997 Jun;4(1):107-119.

The Psychophysiologic Response in Korea Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Chinju, Korea.

Abstract


OBJECTIVES
The psychophysiologic response pattern between healthy subjects and patients with generalized anxiety disorder, and the relationship among anxiety rating scales and those patterns in patients were examined.
METHODS
Twenty-three patients with generalized anxiety disorder(AD) and 23 healthy subjects were evaluated by Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety(HRSA)and State- Trait Anxiety Inventory before baseline stressful tasks, Subjective Units of Distress were evaluated just before baseline period, immediately after stressful tasks, at the end of the entire procedure, and psychophysiologic measures, i.e., skin temperature(ST), electromyographic activity(EMG), heart rate(HR), electrodermal response(EDR) during baseline & rest and during two psychologically stressful tasks (mental arithmentic, TM; talk about a stressful event, TT) were also evaluated.
RESULTS
1) AD group showed significantly higher EMG level during rest after stressful tasks and higher HR level during all period except TM compared to control group. 2) AD group showed lower change in the startle response(SR) of ST, in the SR & the recovery response(RR) of EMG during TM, and in the RR of EDR immediately after TM than control group. AD group showed that the RR of EDR was significantly lower than the SR during stressful tasks. 3) We found that there was significantly negative correlation between state anxiety and the RR of EDR after TT in AD group. We also found that there were significantly positive correlations between HRSA score and the SRs of EDR during stressful tasks, and between state anxiety and the SR of EDR during TT.
CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that patients with generalized anxiety disorder show higher autonomic arousal than healthy subjects and decreased physiologic flexibility or reduced autonomic flexibility.

Keyword

Generalized anxiety disorder; Psychosiologic response; Stressful task

MeSH Terms

Anxiety Disorders*
Anxiety*
Arousal
Heart
Humans
Korea*
Life Change Events
Pliability
Skin
Weights and Measures
Full Text Links
  • SMP
Actions
Cited
CITED
export Copy
Close
Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
Similar articles
Copyright © 2024 by Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors. All rights reserved.     E-mail: koreamed@kamje.or.kr