Structural Study of Anxiety and Mood-related Symptomatology in Psychiatric Outpatients

Knowledge of the symptomatological structure of mental disorders is relevant for their understanding and classification. In the absence of previous Latin American research on the simultaneous structural exploration of various types of psychiatric symptomatologies, the objective of this study is to examine the structure of anxious and mood-related symptoms, resulting syndromes, and their correlations.

Several instruments for the evaluation of anxious, depressive, and manic symptoms were administered to 305 psychiatric outpatients. Using factor analysis and network graphs based on polychoric correlations between the symptoms, their clustering patterns (syndromes) were explored. Further, correlations between the scores of each resulting syndrome were performed.

The symptom grouping process led to a total of fifteen generally overlapping syndromes: fear of evaluation, fear of people, agoraphobia, general anxiety, somatization, anergy, depressive core, lack of positive mood, cognitive difficulties, mania, post-traumatic stress/obsessions, fear of madness/loss of control, acrophobia, irritability, and sleep disturbances. General anxiety was at the center of the structure. Morning/matinal pole, hypersomnia, and increased appetite were relatively isolated symptoms.

Overlapping and/or highly correlated psychiatric syndromes were prominent findings, underlining the pertinence of a dimensional approach as a substantial strategy toward a more inclusive understanding of mental disorders.