Anxiety and depression may be on the rise – one in four Canadians aged 18 and older screened positive for symptoms of anxiety, depression or posttraumatic stress disorder in spring 2021, up from one in five in fall 2020 – but worrying about worrying could be the underlying problem, says Dr. Alexander Penney, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology.

While many people might think that they’re stressed because of their work, their relationships or their finances, ongoing research from Dr. Penney’s Worry and Health Anxiety (WAHA) Lab suggests that it's not a particular situation as much as it is about our beliefs and how we view that situation.

“Negative beliefs about worry – believing that you lack control over your thoughts – seems to be a big predictor of anxiety and overall distress,” he says. “It’s not the fact that you worry about your car or your job or your health that’s the problem; it’s thinking that if you worry too much about those things that it will hurt you in some way.” 

In a recent study, Dr. Penney looked at how intolerance of uncertainty (or wanting certainty in your life) and negative beliefs about worry (thinking that worrying is bad for you) might relate to a range of different mental health symptoms– chronic worry, depression, social anxiety, panic attacks, posttraumatic stress, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, and excessive health anxiety.

He and his two co-authors, Geoffrey Rachor and Kendall Deleurme (both MacEwan Bachelor of Arts, Psychology Honours alumni and now graduate students in clinical psychology), found that intolerance of uncertainty and negative beliefs about worry did, in fact, contribute to generalized anxiety disorder (i.e., chronic worry) and social anxiety disorder symptoms. 

Their findings also indicate that intolerance of uncertainty had a unique relationship with obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, while negative beliefs about worry had a unique relationship with depression. Neither factor was associated with panic, post-traumatic stress, or health anxiety.

Although Dr. Penney doesn’t focus on therapy, there is potential for therapists to use this information to consider different tools for and approaches to treating patients. Therapists working with patients who have depression, for example, would now know to look for and target negative beliefs about worry.

Understanding the role those beliefs play in different mental health diagnoses – particularly anxiety – has implications for both treatment, and the way those diagnoses are viewed, says Dr. Penney.

“The tendency to worry is foundational, so anxiety is often dismissed with statements like, ‘this person is a worrier,’ but it can be a very serious issue. Generalized anxiety disorder, in particular, is common, difficult to treat and has the most relapses.” 

Figuring out the difference between worry that doesn’t significantly impact a person’s life and worry that can be debilitating – preventing people from being able to work or face other everyday situations – is at the heart of the research being done in Dr. Penney’s lab. Currently, he is working with honours students Sydney Parkinson, who is finishing a longitudinal study on generalized anxiety disorder, and Layton Byam, who is completing a study on the predictors of COVID-19 anxiety.

Where could the research go from there?

For Dr. Penney, what comes next depends on his undergraduate students’ interests connected to health and anxiety. “A lot of my research comes down to what my students are interested in because when students are truly invested in their research, that’s when they do their best work.”

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