The relationship between risk perception, anxiety and paranoia - A predictive model in a community sample

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Psychopathology

Background:

• Risk perception biases are potential factors in generalized anxiety and persecutory ideation.
• Previous research is limited by small sample sizes and a lack of validated scales for risk perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between dimensions of risk perception (likelihood, harm, controllability, intentionality) for negative and neutral events with anxiety and paranoia.
• To examine the longitudinal relationships between risk perception and these symptom variables over a 3-month period.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Risk Perception Questionnaire on a community-based sample of 445 adults.
• Employed partial correlations at baseline and cross-lagged path models over 3 months to analyze associations between risk perception, anxiety, and paranoia.

Main Results:

• Anxiety uniquely correlated with likelihood, harm, and intentionality of negative events.
• Paranoia uniquely correlated with all risk perception dimensions for both negative and neutral events.
• Baseline anxiety predicted perceived harm of negative events at 3 months; baseline perceived intentionality of neutral events and likelihood of negative events predicted paranoia at 3 months.

Conclusions:

• Risk perception of negative events is common to both anxiety and paranoia.
• Risk perception of neutral events appears to be a unique characteristic of paranoia.
• Findings suggest implications for the maintenance of sub-clinical anxiety and paranoia.