文档介绍：Behaviour Research and Therapy 41 (2003) 633–646
ate/brat
Cognitive therapy versus applied relaxation as treatment of
generalized anxiety disorder
A. Arntz ∗
Department of Medical, Clinical and Experimental Psychology, University of Maastricht, . Box 616,
NL-6200 MD Maastricht, herlands
Accepted 14 March 2002
Abstract
Cognitive therapy (CT) and applied relaxation (AR) as treatments of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
pared in a sample of 45 patients of munity mental health center, randomly allocated to
condition. Patients were assessed before and after a 12-session treatment, and at one and six months follow-
ups. There was a 20% drop out from CT and 15% from AR (NS), with some drop outs being considerably
improved. pleters and intention-to-treat analyses revealed that both treatments were effective (ESs
posite and specific measures ranging from to ). At one-month follow-up AR tended to do
better than CT, with CT catching up with AR at six months. Recovery rates and proportions of patients
showing reliable change parable to other studies on AR and CT, with 55% of CT and % of
AR patients recovered on the STAI-trait at six-month follow-up. These results confirm that both CT and
AR are effective treatments for GAD, and also that there is still room for improvement.
2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Although a mon and chronic problem in the general population (lifetime prevalence
–%, Blazer, Hughes, e, Swartz, & Boyer, 1991; Kessler et al., 1994), generalized
anxiety disorder (GAD) is not so frequently seen in mental health centers (. approx. % of
the patients from our center have GAD as a first diagnosis). Despite a relatively low prevalence
of GAD at our center, we decided thirteen years ago to start a clinical trial, comparing what then
seemed to be two of the most promising treatments for GAD, applied relaxation (AR) and cogni-
∗ Tel.: +31-43-388-1225; fax: +31-43-388-415