The evaluation of metacognitive beliefs and emotion recognition in panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder: effects on symptoms and comparison with healthy control

Abstract

Background: The impairments in metacognitive functions and emotion recognition are considered as liable factors in anxiety disorders.

Aims: The better understanding of these cognitive abilities might lead to develop more accurate treatment methods for patients who suffer from anxiety.

Methods: Forty-four patients with panic disorder (PD), 37 individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 44 healthy control (HC) were participated in our study. Metacognition questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), Reading The Mind From The Eyes Test and symptom severity tests were administered.

Results: Statistical analyses estimated the dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs and disrupted emotion recognition in patients relative to HC. The ‘need to control thoughts’ aspect of metacognitive beliefs was accounted for symptom severity in GAD. Improper metacognitive beliefs were significantly predicted the PD and GAD. In addition, impoverished emotion recognition predicted the GAD.

Conclusions: Our study revealed the role of inconvenient metacognitive beliefs and distorted emotion recognition in PD and GAD. These findings might facilitate the treatment management in cognitive therapies of anxiety disorders via pointing out more reasonable targets across improper cognitive fields.

Keywords:

• Metacognitive beliefs
• metacognition
• emotion recognition
• panic disorder
• generalized anxiety disorder
• cognitive therapy

Acknowledgments

All of the authors would like to thank Dr. İpek Sönmez for her collaboration in data collection and Dr. Utkun Aydın for proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Orkun Aydın is a psychiatrist and currently works as assistant professor at International University of Sarajevo. He is also coordinator of psychology program.

Kuzeymen Balıkçı is an assistant professor at Near East University, Faculty of Medicine. He gives lectures regarding diagnostic methods in psychiatry.

Fikret Poyraz Çökmüş is a specialist doctor in psychiatry. He administrates psychiatric inpatient and outpatient settings of a state hospital in Manisa, Turkey.

Pınar Ünal Aydın is an assistant professor at International University of Sarajevo. She is a psychiatrist and manages Psychological Counseling Center of the university.