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

Anxiety disorders may be associated with several non-psychiatric disorders. Current literature has been investigating the association between anxiety and joint hypermobility (JHM), 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.

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.

Hypermobile women showed significantly higher scores in all the anxiety scales, when compared with men: BAI total score (t=3.77; p<0.001), its four subscales, SPIN score (t=2.71; p<0.007) and Mini-SPIN (t=2.58; p<0.01). Among BAI subscales, the autonomic subscale was shown to be more significantly (t=3.89; p<0.001) associated with joint hypermobility in women.

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.