The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Interpersonal Relationship Dimensions in Individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The Mediating Role of Anger Rumination.

Background: Childhood traumas (CTs) affect the etiology of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and the interpersonal relationship dimensions (IRDs) in these individuals. Traumatic experiences are related to anger control problems and interpersonal relationships (IRs) in these individuals. In this study, individuals diagnosed with GAD and healthy controls (HC) were compared in terms of CTs, IRDs, and anger ruminations (ARs), and the mediating role of ARs in the relationship between CTs and IRDs in individuals with GAD was tried to be determined.

Methods: Patients who applied to the Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic of Sultan II. Abdulhamid Han Education and Research Hospital and were diagnosed with GAD according to DSM-V diagnostic criteria (n = 378) and the HC group (n = 195) was evaluated in terms of demographic variables, CTs, IRDs, and ARs.

Findings: CTs, IRDs, and ARs levels were higher in those diagnosed with GAD than in the HC group. There was a significant relationship between the mean age and ARs levels (P =-.184, P < .001) and between CTs and IRDs levels (r = 0.241, P < .001) in the patient group. ARs were found to have a mediating role in the relationship between CTs and IRDs.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that CTs are associated with ARs in individuals diagnosed with GAD and therefore increase the tendency to have problems with IRs. Evaluating ARs at the beginning of the treatment process in GAD individuals is important both in terms of contributing to the treatment process of the disease and determining the risk factors or supradiagnostic factors that maintain the disease.