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