Thought Control Strategies in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder and Their Relationships With Trait Anxiety

objective: the present study aims to investigate thought control strategies in generalizedanxiety disorder (gad), major depressive disorder (mdd), and the relationship of thesemetacognitive strategies with trait anxiety, as a construct of emotional vulnerability.methods: 60 patients with diagnosis of gad and mdd and 30 control subjects (nonpatients)were selected from the university students. participants answered to beck anxiety inventory(bai) , beck depression inventory–ii (bdi-ii), thought control questionnaire (tcq) , statetrait anxiety inventory (stai), and general health questionnaire-28 (ghq-28).the datawas analyzed by manova and enter regression.results: the results showed that gad group was distinguished from the control group bytheir greater use of worry and punishment strategies. the depression group was differentiatedfrom nonpatient group by the greater use of worry strategy and lesser use of distraction andreappraisal strategies. the gad group was distinguished from mdd group by greater useof reappraisal strategy and lesser use of worry strategy. worry and punishment strategies canpositively predict (p < 0.001 and p = 0.001) trait anxiety while distraction and reappraisalnegatively predict (p< 0.001 and p = 0.047) it.conclusion: gad and mdd patients use maladaptive thought control strategies morefrequently and these maladaptive metacognitive strategies can be predictors of trait anxiety asan underlying pathology.