6 Transdiagnostic Issues: Death Anxiety Flashcards
(43 cards)
What is a transdiagnostic construct or process?
- Feature across several disorders (Self-esteem)
- Represent a causal mechanism across several disorders
Why is there increasing interest in transdiagnostic constructs?
Due to the high comorbidity also allows for transdiagnostic treatments (instead of revolving door effect)
What is terror management theory?
A theory about how people respond to the knowledge of their own mortality. Two buffers:
1) cultural worldviews
- gaining immortality by buying into beliefs
2) self-esteem
- gaining meaning by fulfilling expectations of a cultural worldview (being rich, gaining tertiary qual)
What did Greenburg et al., (1986) find in the study about death anxiety?
200 + ‘Mortality Sailence’ (MS) Studies
Death reminders impact a whole range of human behaviours
- Reminders of death also increase spending behaviour, and may also give harsher punishments than the norm
What did Iverach, Menzies, & Menzies (2014) find out about death anxiety?
It might be a transdiagnostic construct and underpin a number of disorders
- Anxiety disorders, OCD, eating disorders, PTSD, depression etc
What is the role of death anxiety in panic disorder?
Significantly higher fear of death than social phobia patients and controls (Furer & Walker, 2008; Randall, 2001)
What is the role of death anxiety in agoraphobia according to Foa et al., (1994)?
Many symptoms are associated with death fears
- Fear of harm when leaving home
- Increased focus on internal sensations
- Hypochoncrical concerns
- Frequent catastrophic death-related fears
What is the role of death anxiety in specific phobias?
- Freud argued that fears of death underlie phobias
- When death anxiety focuses on more specific, manageable threats
- MS increased in these people
What is the role of death anxiety in PTSD according to Chatard et al., (2012)?
Death anxiety argued to play a role in development & Maintenance
What is the role of death anxiety in PTSD according to Martz, (2004) and Safren et al., (2003)?
Death anxiety is significantly correlated with overall PTSD symptom severity and re-experiencing, avoidance and hyper-arousal
What is the role of death anxiety in depressive disorders?
Depressive disorders may be exacerbated by existential despair and lack of meaning (e.g. Ghaemi, 2007; Simon et al., 1998)
What is the evidence of death anxiety in depressive disorders according to Simon et al., (1996)?
Some evidence that depression may be assocaited with weaker buffers against death anxiety
What is the role of death anxiety in Eating Disorders according to Giles (1995)?
Women diagnosed with anorexia nervosa show significantly higher death anxiety than controls
What is the role of death anxiety in Eating Disorders according to Le Marne & Harris (2016)?
Death anxiety positively correlated with disordered eating, perfectionism, and self-reports of a current mental disorder
- Perfectionism was only a significant predictor when death anxiety and self-esteem were excluded
What is the role of death anxiety in PTSD from the perspective of TMT?
PTSD may involve disrupted anxiety buffers where their normal buffers of world views may not be working as normal as they usually are.
What does the severity depend on according to Maxfield et al., (2014)
The severity of PTSD depends on both the severity of trauma and prior strength of buffers
What did Kesebir et al., (2011) conclude on TMT and PTSD?
Individuals with PTSD don’t show increased worldview defence after MS, unlike control particiapnts
What did Chatard et al., (2012) study on using MS with individuals following a civil war include?
Low PTSD symptoms -> suppression of death doughts
High PTSD symptoms -> immediate increase in death-related thoughts
Suggests anxiety-buffering defences are disrupted in PTSD
What are some limitations of previous studies?
- Rarely a treatment-seeking clinical sample
- Rarely looking outside of the one disorder of interest (not the whole picture)
- No studies investigating fear of deaths relationship to complex mental health severity in a clinical population
What did Menxies, Sharpe & Dar-Nimrod (2019) find in fear of death predicting mental health severity?
Death anxiety predicted (N=200)
- Clinical’s judgement of distress (r=.75)
- Number of medications (r=.64)
- Number of hospitalizations
- Depression, stress and anxiety
- Number of lifetime diagnoses
What is the correlation between death anxiety vs other transdiagnostic constructs?
Death anxiety correlations are very strong whereas the other constructs (perfectionism, rumination and self-esteem) are getting a lot more attention
What are (more) limitations of previous studies?
Almost always correlational
How can we test whether death anxiety is causing the disorder? if death anxiety is at the root, reminders of death should lead to more behaviours associated with that disorder AND there should be specificity
Which disorder did Goldenburg, Arndt, Hart & Brown (2005) experimental study focus on and what were the results?
Eating Disorders
- Reminders of death led women (but not men) to: Perceive themselves as further from their ideal thinness and eat 40% less in a taste-testing task than controls
- Death may be driving women to strive for thinness promoted by their cultural worldviews
What was the experimental study Strrachen et al. (2007) focus and what were the results?
Social Anxiety Disorder
They used MS with students in high vs low in social anxiety
- Death priming produced significantly more social avoidance among socially anxious participants
