Abstract
The aims of this study were to examine age-differences regarding various worry components among younger and older adults and to characterize the relationships between worry domains and anxiety. A total of 311 younger adults (18 - 30 years) and 100 older adults (65+ years) completed seven worry and anxiety questionnaires, focusing on worry content, worry severity, and responses to worry. A series of 2 × 2 ANOVAs was computed to examine differences in worry and anxiety related to age and gender. Interaction effects indicated that gender differences among younger adults were significantly more pronounced than older adults with women reporting greater worry and anxiety than men. Main effects of age indicated that younger adults reported greater worry than older across all worry domains. Worry and anxiety measures were found to be highly correlated across all domains. Findings indicate that worry is fundamentally related to anxiety across age groups and that a variety of aspects of worry should be considered to understand the breadth of worry’s influence on anxiety. Additionally, age and gender have unique relationships with worry and anxiety and interact to complicate individuals’ symptom profiles. Thus, worry is a multifaceted construct that is crucial to understanding anxiety in general and warrants multifaceted assessment and intervention.
Highlights
The Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS), Brief Measure of Worry Severity (BMWS), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), Worry Scale, and Worry Domains Questionnaire Short Form (WDQ-SF) total scores were all significantly positively correlated at the p < 0.001 level among both the younger adult sample and the older adult sample, with large effect sizes
As anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems identified in older adults and worry is a cardinal symptom of anxiety disorders, the limited research examining worry among older adults represents a problematic gap
This study provided an in-depth analysis of worry as both its own construct characterized by a variety of facets as well as a symptom of anxiety to tease apart the multifaceted nature of worry
Summary
The Cognitive Avoidance Model of Worry postulates that worry acts as a method of reducing or muffling negative responses and arousal of anxiety (Borkovec et al, 2004). The Emotion Dysregulation Model suggests that those with anxiety symptoms struggle to understand and regulate emotional arousal, resulting in maladaptive anxiety and worry patterns (Mennin et al, 2005). Though each of these models presents a unique perspective on the nature and functioning of worry, each one emphasizes discomfort with negative states and individuals’ attempts to avoid and/or mitigate their effects
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