Modeling of the effect of coping with stress styles on GAD by brain’s executive functions

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the executive functions (EFs) as the mediators between coping with stress styles and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Two styles of coping with stress (problem focused coping (PFC) and emotion focused coping (EFC)) and eight executive functions (inhibition, flexibility, focusing, working memory, decision making, reasoning, problem solving, and meta-cognition) were examined during this study. Method: This research was administrated in 250 GAD clinical patients that were selected as available samples. SCID interview and DASS-21 applied to diagnose the moderate level of GAD as well as to quantify the data. The N-Back, Strop, Tower of London and the other tests were the software tests which measured the executive functions. Results: Results showed that the model of coping with stress styles with eight EF mediators to GAD contains the goodness of fit. Both inhibition and flexibility were the mediators that affected GAD. The meta-cognition was an EF that was affected from both the inhibition and working memory. Conclusion: Findings generally showed that PFC is not applied by GAD patients and do not affect GAD except by meta-cognition. This is while EFC affects it by inhibition, flexibility, working memory and decision making.