Association between joint hypermobility and anxiety in Brazilian university students: Gender-related differences

作者：Sanches S B^*; Osorio F L; Louzada Junior P; Moraes D; Crippa J A S; Martin Santos R

来源：Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2014, 77(6): 558-561.

DOI：10.1016/j.jpsychores.2014.08.016

• Anxiety
• Joint hypermobility
• Autonomic dysfunction
• Women
• University students

Introduction: Anxiety disorders may be associated with several non-psychiatric disorders. Current literature has been investigating the association between anxiety and joint hypermobility OHM), with special interest in non-articular symptoms that may be related to autonomic dysfunction. This study investigated the association between anxiety and JHM in a sample of Brazilian university students. %26lt;br%26gt;Methods: Data were cross-sectionally collected in two Brazilian universities (N = 2600). Participants completed three validated self-rating anxiety scales: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) and the brief-version of SPIN (Mini-SPIN). They also answered the self-rating screening questionnaire for JHM: the Five-part Questionnaire for Identifying Hypermobility. %26lt;br%26gt;Results: Hypermobile women showed significantly higher scores in all the anxiety scales, when compared with men: BAI total score (t = 3.77; p %26lt; 0.001), its four subscales, SPIN score (t = 2.71; p %26lt; 0.007) and MiniSPIN (t = 2.58; p %26lt; 0.01). Among BAI subscales, the autonomic subscale was shown to be more significantly (t = 3.89; p %26lt; 0.001) associated with joint hypermobility in women. %26lt;br%26gt;Conclusions: The results of the present study support earlier evidence on the relationship between anxiety and JHM in women, showing specific gender-related features in this field. It also directs attention to non-articular symptoms that may be enrolled in this association.

• 出版日期2014-12