Objective: The purpose of the current research was to study implicit memory bias for negative emotional information in patients with general anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and normal individuals.
Method: this was a cross-sectional study including 20 patients with generalized anxiety disorder, 20 with major depressive disorder and 20 normal subjects between 18 to 52 years old. The groups were matched on the bases of sex, age and education. Word Stem Completion Task (implicit memory bias) was used to assess the subjects. Word stems were related to ambiguous words that could be completed to neutral and negative words.
Results: Analysis of variance showed that the patients with major depression and generalized anxiety completed the stems with more negative words then the control subjects. It suggests an implicit memory bias in the two disordered groups.
Conclusion: The results are in line with the literature, showing congruence with Bower's approach on major depressive disorder (1987) and with the model proposed by Eysenck and Keana (2000) and Bower (1987) on generalized anxiety disorder.
Type of Study:
Research |
Subject:
Special Received: 2006/05/15 | Accepted: 2006/07/23 | Published: 2006/09/23