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Insomni och depression är två  psykiatriska tillstånd med hög prevalens. Prevalensen för insomni är ca 11% hos den svenska befolkningen och motsvarande siffror för depression är ca 5-8%. Komorbiditet mellan dessa två tillstånd är vanligt förekommande. Dessa två tillstånd är ofta teoretiskt sammankopplade med de två kognitiva processerna oro och ruminering. En behandlingsmetod som visat sig vara effektiv mot respektive tillstånd är kognitiv beteendeterapi (KBT). I föreliggande studie har internetbaserad KBT (iKBT) där båda tillstånden behandlas simultant studerats. Studiens huvudsakliga syfte var att undersöka skillnaden i utfall mellan en behandlingsmetod och en kontrollbehandling samt dess långtidseffekter. Totalt inkluderades 124 deltagare som randomiserades till antingen kombinationsbehandling mot komorbid insomni och depression (n=63), eller kontrollbehandling mot depression med desensibilisering som placebo mot insomni (n=61). Resultatet visar att behandlingsgruppen har en statistiskt signifikant större sänkning av insomnisymtom mellan före- och eftermätning jämfört med kontrollbehandling. Statistiskt signifikanta samband förekom gällande förändring i insomnisymtom, depressionssymtom, oro och ruminering mellan två mättillfällen. Förändring i oro mellan före- och eftermätning kunde predicera utfall i förändringsvärde för insomnisymtom mellan föremätning och FU36. Förändring i oro mellan före- och eftermätning kunde predicera nivå av depressionssymtom vid FU36. Studiens resultat stärker hypotesen att insomni är ett tillstånd som kräver specifik behandling och att det finns ett samband mellan insomni och depression samt de kognitiva processerna oro och ruminering men att detta samband bör undersökas ytterligare. / Insomnia and depression are two psychiatric conditions with high prevalence in the general population. Insomnia occurs among around 11% of the Swedish population and the equivalence for depression is around 5-8%. These conditions frequently appear comorbidly. There has found to be a theoretical link between these two conditions and the cognitive processes labeled anxious worry and rumination. One treatment method which has shown itself to be effective in treating these respective conditions is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In the present study, internet-delivered CBT aiming to treat both conditions simultaneously have been studied with the purpose of evaluating two different methods and the long term effects of these methods. A total of 124 participants were included and randomized to either a combined treatment for insomnia or depression (n=63) or a control treatment consisting of treatment for depression and desensibilisation as placebo for insomnia (n=61). The results of the present study indicates a statistically significant effect on symptoms of insomnia between pre- and post measurements depending on treatment group. There was a statistically significant correlation between change in all the four domains, depression, insomnia, rumination and anxious worry between two separate measurements. A change in anxious worry between pre and post measurements was also found to predict the level of change in insomnia symptoms between pre and 36 month follow-up measurements. Change in anxious worry between pre and post measurements could also predict the level of depression observed at the measurement at the 36 month follow-up. The findings in this study corroborates the hypotheses that insomnia is a condition which require a specific treatment and that there is a relation between insomnia and depression and the cognitive processes anxious worry and rumination but that this relation needs to be further examined. / ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01663844 New Clinical Applications for Internet-based Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia and Depression

Background: Worry exposure (WE) is a core element of cognitive-behavioral treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Its efficacy as a stand-alone treatment method (without further cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions) has never been tested.We aimed to examine whether WE alone is as efficacious as the empirically supported stand-alone treatment for GAD, applied relaxation (AR). Methods: In a randomized controlled study, 73 outpatients meeting DSM-IV criteria for GAD as primary diagnosis were allocated to either WE or AR or a waiting list control group; in a 2nd randomization procedure the waiting list subjects were reallocated to WE or AR. The treatment was manualized (15 sessions with WE or AR), included 6-month and 1-year follow-ups, as well as last observation carried forward and completer analyses, and was controlled for allegiance effects.The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Scale were used as primary outcome measures. Self-report scales of anxiety, worrying and depression including negative metacognition about worrying and thought suppression served as secondary outcome measures. Results: The dropout rate was moderate. The pre-/posttreatment effects were high for the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (standardized mean difference >1) and for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (standardized mean difference >0.87). The proportion of patients reaching high end state functioning was 48% (WE) and 56% (AR). WE and AR did not differ with regard to dropout rate or treatment effects. The treatment effects were stable at 6 month and 1 year follow-up. Conclusion: This is the first study to show that a stand-alone exposure in sensu technique – WE – is efficacious in the treatment of GAD. Both AR and WE seem to represent effective principles of change in GAD. / Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

Emotions are an integral part of the human experience and their interpretation can provide valuable but also misleading clues about oneself and other people’s state of mind. Negative emotional states can be perceived as uncomfortable and – when experienced chronically – can develop into anxiety and mood disorders. The more pervasive these disorders the more severely they affect and disable a person’s everyday functioning and often their sleep as well. According to Lang and colleagues (1998), emotions may be expressed verbally, behaviorally, and physiologically, i.e., emotions can be reported, observed, and objectively measured. Each measurement approach provides important, unique, and often conflicting information that can be used in the assessment and treatment evaluation of psychological disorders affecting the emotions. Autonomic measures have been used to indicate the physiological components of emotions, such as those along the worry-anxiety-fear-panic spectrum. Worry has been shown to suppress cardiac responses to imaginal feared material (see Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004) and reduce autonomic variability (Hoehn-Saric, McLeod, Funderburk, & Kowalski, 2004; Hoehn-Saric, McLeod, & Zimmerli, 1989). Results for panic and anticipatory anxiety are less conclusive but theoretically these states should go along with increased autonomic arousal. Abnormal autonomic arousal might also be present during sleep as both panic disorder and worrying have been associated with sleeping difficulties. However, most empirical research has been confined to the laboratory where high internal validity is achieved at the cost of poor ecological validity. Thus, the purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to extend and validate laboratory findings on worry, anticipatory anxiety, and panic using ambulatory monitoring. Twenty-four hour monitoring not only can give valuable insights into a person’s daytime emotional experience but also allows observing how these emotions might affect their sleep in their natural environment. In the following chapter, the reader will be introduced to a conceptual framework that ties together worry, anxiety, fear, and panic, and related anxiety disorders (section 2.1), to autonomic arousal and electrodermal and cardiac arousal in particular (section 2.2), to sleep and its relation to autonomic arousal and anxiety disorders (section 2.3), and to ambulatory monitoring (section 2.4). After illustrating the aims of this thesis (chapter 3), chapters 4 to 6 present the results of three empirical studies conducted as part of this doctoral research. The first study deals solely with electrodermal monitoring and how it is affected by confounding variables in an ambulatory context (chapter 4). The next study then seeks to investigate the relationship between electrodermal arousal and anticipatory anxiety and panic in a sample of panic disorder patients and healthy controls. The last study focuses primarily on the effect of trait and state worry on subjective and objective sleep and electrodermal and cardiac arousal in a group of high and low worriers. Chapters 7 to 9 summarize and integrate the findings from these three empirical studies, discuss methodological limitations, and provide an outlook into future research.

Kognitiv beteendeterapi för primär insomni är inte lika effektivt som KBT för annan problematik. Behandlingen har mest fokuserat på förändring av sömn och bortsett från andra faktorer som kan bidraga till problematiken. Denna studie syftade till att utvärdera effekten av att addera en intervention mot en ytterligare faktor, nämligen oro, till behandling. Studien hade en single subject-design med två betingelser, med och utan oroshantering, för- och eftermätning och sju deltagare. Resultaten tyder på att metoden konstruktiv oro tillförde bättre utfall på sömn, oro och daglig funktion. Slutsatsen är att fokus på fler faktorer än sömn, som oro och dagtidsfunktion, kan effektivisera KBT för primär insomni. / Cognitive behavioral therapy for primary insomnia is not as effective as CBT for other problems. The treatment has primary focused on change of sleep and neglected other factors which can contribute to the problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of adding an intervention aimed at an additional factor, namely worry, to treatment. The study had a single subject design with two conditions, with and without constructive worry, pre- and posttest and seven participants. The results indicated that the intervention constructive worry added better outcomes on sleep, worry and daytime function.  The conclusion that can be drawn is that a focus on more factors than sleep, such as worry and daytime function, can render CBT for primary insomnia more effective.

Meta-cognitive models have been utilized to explore the relations between worry and generalized anxiety disorder, as well as, the associations between rumination and depression. However, relatively few studies have focused on the role of meta-cognitive variables and social phobia symptoms. It is possible that individuals with social phobia follow a pattern of thinking similar to that of those who experience depressive rumination and worry. Specifically, it may be that individuals with social phobia hold positive beliefs about their highly negative prolonged post-event evaluations of social interactions. The primary goal of this study was the development and assessment of the Positive Beliefs about Post-Event Processing Questionnaire (PB-PEPQ). Further, it was predicted that post-event processing would mediate the relationship between positive beliefs about post-event processing and social phobia symptoms. The findings from this study suggested that the PB-PEPQ is a valid and reliable construct. Additionally, the findings provide initial evidence for a cognitive model in which individuals who tend to hold positive beliefs about post-event processing, tend to engage in post-event processing which may increase social phobia symptoms.

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Diagnostik unerwünschter Gedanken sowie der Spezifität von Gedankenunterdrückung bei phobischen Patienten. Zwei Fragebogenverfahren zum Thema Sorgen sowie ein Instrument zur Erfassung von Strategien im Umgang mit intrusiven Gedanken wurden bezüglich der Gütekriterien der deutschen Übersetzung in einer klinischen Stichprobe evaluiert. Dabei handelt es sich um den Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ), der Sorgeninhalte erhebt, den Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), der die Intensität von Sorgen erfasst, und den Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) zur Erfassung der Gedankenkontrollstrategien. Die Verfahren wurden bei 440 Psychotherapie-Patienten zu drei Meßzeitpunkten eingesetzt. Hinsichtlich der inneren Konsistenz und der Retest-Reliabilität ergeben sich für alle Instrumente zufriedenstellende bis gute Kennwerte. Die Validität ist nur für den PSWQ als gut zu bezeichnen. Beim WDQ zeigen sich Probleme hinsichtlich der Trennung von Sorgen und sozialer Ängstlichkeit, während der TCQ wohl eher Aspekte allgemeiner Psychopathologie als spezifische Strategien erfasst. Eine zweite Studie befasste sich mit intentionaler Gedankenunterdrückung. Die paradoxen Effekte dieser Bemühungen wurden wiederholt mit psychischen Störungen, vor allem mit Angststörungen, in Verbindung gebracht. Dabei ist ein wichtiges Thema, ob die Gedankenkontrollfähigkeit nur für störungsspezifische Inhalte oder generell beeinträchtigt ist. Die vorliegende Studie verglich Patienten mit Agoraphobie und Patienten mit Sozialphobie mit einer gesunden Kontrollgruppe. Alle Personen mussten Gedanken an ein neutrales Kontrollthema sowie zwei störungsspezifische Themen unterdrücken. Es zeigte sich ein störungsspezifischer Effekt bei den Agoraphobikern. Sozialphobiker scheinen hingegen ein generelles Defizit ihrer mentalen Kontrolle aufzuweisen. Zusätzlich erwies sich soziale Ängstlickeit innerhalb einer Reihe psychopathologischer Variablen als stärkster Prädikator für Schwierigkeiten bei der Gedankenunterdrückung. Ingesamt weisen einige Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit darauf hin, dass Gedankenunterdrückung ein wichtiges Merkmal der Sozialphobie sein könnte. / The work conducted aimed at evaluating instruments investigating unwanted thoughts as well as determining the specifity of thought suppression in phobia. German translations of two questionnaires measuring worry as well as an instrument, measuring strategies used in dealing with unwanted thoughts, were evaluated in a clinical sample. We used the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ), measuring contents of worry, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), measuring the intensity of worry, and the Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ), investigating strategies in thought control. The instruments were administered at three points in a sample of 440 patients receiving psychological treatment. Concerning internal consistency and retest-reliability all questionnaires showed acceptable to good results. Validity is only good concerning PSWQ. WDQ has problems in differentiating worry and social anxiety, where as TCQ seems to measure general psychopathology more than specific strategies. The second study investigated intended thought suppression. Its paradoxical effects have been linked to psychological disorders, namely anxiety disorders. One important issue is if thought suppression is impaired only for thoughts related to the disorder or if the ability for mental control is generally impaired in anxiety patients. This study compared groups of agoraphobics and social phobics with healthy controls. All subjects had to suppress a neutral topic and two topics related to the central fear of the two disorders. We found a rather specific deficit in thought suppression for the agoraphobics. Social phobics seem to be characterized by a general impairment of mental control. In addition, among several psychopathological variables, social anxiety proved to be the strongest predictor for problems with thought suppression. Taken together, there are several indicators that thought suppression may be an important feature of social phobia.

People use shortcuts to make decisions to efficiently deal with a large volume of information. Linear thinking is one shortcut and it contributes to exponential growth bias which means underestimation of exponential growth values. This study examined differences in exponential growth bias in the context of the stock market and COVID-19 cases. Moreover, this research analyzed correlation between exponential growth bias and worry for health and for the economy in the contexts of COVID-19 and stock market. A total of 120 participants completed an online survey in which they were randomly assigned to the COVID-19 or stock market group. A 2 x 3 repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant differences depending on the group. Moreover, ANOVA showed that bias increased in line with the increase in the percentages analyzed for both groups. Exploratory Pearson analysis showed that there was a significant negative correlation between worry for the economy and exponential growth bias of 15% and 40% growth scenarios in COVID-19 group. There were no significant correlations between worry for the economy or health in the stock market group. The conclusion is that people use shortcuts which leads them to biased decision- making. For example, when calculating exponential values, people think linearly and it leads them to exponential growth bias, what in practice results in estimating values lower than they are. Interventions, as education with aim to reduce exponential growth bias are proposed for the future research.

Emotions are an integral part of the human experience and their interpretation can provide valuable but also misleading clues about oneself and other people’s state of mind. Negative emotional states can be perceived as uncomfortable and – when experienced chronically – can develop into anxiety and mood disorders. The more pervasive these disorders the more severely they affect and disable a person’s everyday functioning and often their sleep as well. According to Lang and colleagues (1998), emotions may be expressed verbally, behaviorally, and physiologically, i.e., emotions can be reported, observed, and objectively measured. Each measurement approach provides important, unique, and often conflicting information that can be used in the assessment and treatment evaluation of psychological disorders affecting the emotions. Autonomic measures have been used to indicate the physiological components of emotions, such as those along the worry-anxiety-fear-panic spectrum. Worry has been shown to suppress cardiac responses to imaginal feared material (see Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004) and reduce autonomic variability (Hoehn-Saric, McLeod, Funderburk, & Kowalski, 2004; Hoehn-Saric, McLeod, & Zimmerli, 1989). Results for panic and anticipatory anxiety are less conclusive but theoretically these states should go along with increased autonomic arousal. Abnormal autonomic arousal might also be present during sleep as both panic disorder and worrying have been associated with sleeping difficulties. However, most empirical research has been confined to the laboratory where high internal validity is achieved at the cost of poor ecological validity. Thus, the purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to extend and validate laboratory findings on worry, anticipatory anxiety, and panic using ambulatory monitoring. Twenty-four hour monitoring not only can give valuable insights into a person’s daytime emotional experience but also allows observing how these emotions might affect their sleep in their natural environment. In the following chapter, the reader will be introduced to a conceptual framework that ties together worry, anxiety, fear, and panic, and related anxiety disorders (section 2.1), to autonomic arousal and electrodermal and cardiac arousal in particular (section 2.2), to sleep and its relation to autonomic arousal and anxiety disorders (section 2.3), and to ambulatory monitoring (section 2.4). After illustrating the aims of this thesis (chapter 3), chapters 4 to 6 present the results of three empirical studies conducted as part of this doctoral research. The first study deals solely with electrodermal monitoring and how it is affected by confounding variables in an ambulatory context (chapter 4). The next study then seeks to investigate the relationship between electrodermal arousal and anticipatory anxiety and panic in a sample of panic disorder patients and healthy controls. The last study focuses primarily on the effect of trait and state worry on subjective and objective sleep and electrodermal and cardiac arousal in a group of high and low worriers. Chapters 7 to 9 summarize and integrate the findings from these three empirical studies, discuss methodological limitations, and provide an outlook into future research.

Bakgrund: Unga vuxna är en målgrupp som inte främst tillhör en riskgrupp för allvarliga konsekvenser av COVID-19 gällande sjuklighet och dödlighet. Den globala pandemin kan ha fler konsekvenser på hälsan, där unga vuxna kan ses som en sårbar grupp. Med grund i “Risk perception model” och “Trust determination theory”, vilka kan härleda att en effektiv riskkommunikation under en pandemi är beroende av ett högt myndighetsförtroende och att förstå befolkningens oro, vill denna studie undersöka dessa områden samt eventuella samband och skillnader mellan olika grupper. Syfte: Att undersöka eventuellt samband mellan hög upplevd oro och lågt myndighetsförtroende bland unga vuxna samt eventuella skillnad bland grupper som bakgrundsvariablerma kön, ålder, utbildning och utländsk bakgrund, samt påverkansfaktorerna olika personliga erfarenheter av COVID-19 och inställning till vaccin. Metod: För denna kvantitativa tvärsnittsstudie skapades en enkät i Easyquest och publicerades i olika Facebook-grupper under en vecka i November 2021. Enkäten bestod av 19 frågor där frågorna om upplevd oro och myndighetsförtroende mättes på likert-skala (1-5). Vissa variabler kom i analysen att dikotomiserades till grupper, eller omkodas till index i SPSS vilka testades för intern reliabilitet med Cronbach's Alpha. Vidare genomfördes sambandsanalys med myndighetsförtroende och upplevd oro med Spearmans korrelation (rs , p &lt; .05) och hypotesprövning med eventuella skillnader mellan grupper med chi-2-test (X 2 , p &lt; .05). Resultat: Av n=152 deltagare, var n=40 män och n=105 kvinnor. 48% uppger att myndighetsförtroendet har minskat och 68% menar att deras mentala hälsa har påverkats negativt under COVID-19-pandemin. Den andel som upplever högt förtroende för följande myndigheters hantering av COVID-19-pandemin är för; Hälso- och sjukvården 62%, Folkhälsomyndigheten 44%, MSB 34%, Regeringen 19%. Resultatet för upplevd oro visar att den är högst för framtida smittsamma sjukdomar följt av samhällsförändringar. De med personliga erfarenheter av närståendes sjukdom i COVID-19 upplever en högre oro för; långvariga hälsokonsekvenser, X 2 (1, N = 149) = 4.409, p = .036, och framtida smittsamma sjukdomar X 2 (1, N = 149) = 5.127, p = .024. De som är negativt/tveksamt inställda till COVID-19 vaccin upplever högre oro och lägre myndighetsförtroende för flera av de testade variabler (X 2 &lt;p &lt; .005). Statistiskt signifikanta samband uppmättes mellan lågt myndighetsförtroende och hög oro för; samhällsförändringar rs -.247, (p = .002), vaccinationsbiverkningar rs -.480, (p &lt; .001), och konspirationsteorier rs -.368 (p &lt; .001). Slutsats: Myndighetsförtroende och upplevd oro är föränderliga över tid och kontext och studien är endast en tvärsnittsstudie. Resultatet kanske inte helt kan generaliseras på den undersökta populationen, men studien pekar mot att unga vuxna har lägre myndighetsförtroende än den vuxna populationen generellt. Den upplevda oron är högst för områden som förändringar i samhället och framtida smittsamma sjukdomar. Personliga erfarenheter av COVID-19 kan i vissa fall påverka den upplevda oron och de som är tveksamma till vaccin har även ett lägre myndighetsförtroende och en högre upplevd oro för flera uppmätta indikatorer. Statistiskt signifikant samband uppmättes mellan lågt myndighetsförtroende och hög nivå av oro för; samhällsförändringar, konspirationsteorier och vaccinationsbiverkningar. / <p>Betyg i Ladok 220323.</p>