اضطراب اجتماعی و ارتباط آن با اختلال عملکرد در اختلال بدریخت انگاری

Social anxiety appears to be a prominent characteristic of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). However, few previous studies have examined social anxiety and its facets (i.e., physiological arousal, fear and avoidance of social situations) and their relationship to psychosocial functioning in BDD. The present study aimed to fill these gaps by examining (a) social anxiety and its facets in BDD, and b) cross-sectional and prospective relationships between social anxiety symptoms and functional impairment in BDD. Individuals with DSM-IV BDD without comorbid social phobia (N = 108) completed measures of social anxiety and psychosocial functioning at study intake (T1). Psychosocial functioning was also assessed at a 12-month follow-up interview (T2). Severity of social anxiety (i.e., due to BDD or any other source) was rated with the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). In addition, participants were interviewed with the Duke Brief Social Phobia Scale (BSPS) to assess social anxiety independent of BDD. At T1, participants endorsed high levels of social anxiety on the SPIN and subclinical levels of social anxiety on the BSPS. Greater social anxiety was associated with poorer psychosocial functioning in cross-sectional and prospective analyses, particularly fear and avoidance of social situations. These results suggest that certain aspects of social anxiety, especially social fear and avoidance, may be significant contributing factors to functional impairment in individuals with BDD.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a distressing and impairing disorder characterized by preoccupations with imagined or slight defects in physical appearance. BDD is a relatively common disorder, with reported point prevalence rates of 0.7% to 2.4% in the general population (Faravelli et al., 1997, Koran et al., 2008, Otto et al., 2001 and Rief et al., 2006). Although BDD is often conceptualized as an OC-spectrum disorder (Cohen and Hollander, 1997, Goldsmith et al., 1998 and Mataix-Cols et al., 2007), BDD appears to be characterized by features seen in other anxiety disorders—in particular, high levels of social anxiety akin to social phobia (SP) (Coles et al., 2006 and Phillips, 2005). Studies have found that levels of social anxiety in BDD are similar to those reported for SP, with social anxiety symptoms ranging from 1.3 to 1.5 SD units higher than in normative samples ( Pinto and Phillips, 2005 and Veale et al., 2003).