Method
Participants
Participants were women over the age of 18 with a self-reported
diagnosis of at least one anxiety disorder (GAD, OCD, SAD or Specific
Phobia) and no ASC diagnosis, recruited voluntarily online. Initially,
486 women responded to the questionnaire, with a final sample size of
360 after removing those with more than 2 items missing for each
questionnaire.
Procedure
This study used a cross-sectional design. Ethical approval was given by
the Newcastle University Ethical Committee before publication of the
study on the online-survey tool Qualtrics. Ethical issues regarding
consent and confidentiality were addressed with participants completing
information sheets and consent forms assuring confidentiality and the
ability to withdraw their data from the study, before disclosing their
anxiety diagnosis, answering questionnaires and then being debriefed
upon completion. No further ethical issues were identified, and
questionnaires were presented in the order given below with no time
restrictions.
Materials