Abstract
Objectives: Social anxiety disorder is chronic, persistent and disabling. Many of the situations tending to activate social anxiety (such as meeting new people) are particularly prominent during the postpartum period. Adapting to the role of motherhood while navigating this new social world could be particularly challenging for mothers with high social anxiety. However, to date no studies have looked at the presence of perinatal specific social cognitions and safety behaviours during this period which would have implications for the cognitive treatment of perinatal SAD.Methods: The study included mothers with high (N = 181) and low (N = 132) social anxiety with a baby under 12-months. Perinatal specific social anxiety measures were developed in collaboration with experts in social anxiety and perinatal mental health. Mothers completed an online survey of self-report measures exploring cognitions, behaviours and focus of attention in social situations, as well as an ambiguous scenarios task. The contribution of maternal depression and mothers’ perception of their infant’s temperament (specifically fussiness and difficulty) was also examined.
Results: In social situations, mothers with high social anxiety reported endorsing more perinatal specific negative social cognitions, more frequent use of perinatal safety behaviours and focusing more attention on their baby than mothers with low social anxiety. When asked to imagine hypothetical social scenarios with a risk of negative evaluation, the belief ratings for the negative interpretations of the scenarios were not significantly different between the SA groups. Mothers with high social anxiety described their infant’s temperament as more fussy and difficult than those with low social anxiety.
Conclusions: We found cognitive, behavioural and focus of attention processes specific to the perinatal period that could be important targets in the successful CT treatment of SA in early motherhood. Further research is needed to explore how these mechanisms work and what happens in terms of the level of SA in women with SAD when they go into the perinatal period.
| Date of Award | 1 Oct 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Katharine Rimes (Supervisor), Fiona Challacombe (Supervisor) & Emma Warnock-Parkes (Supervisor) |