Anhedonia is central for the association between quality of life, metacognition, sleep, and affective symptoms in generalized anxiety disorder: A complex network analysis

Background: Poor quality of life, sleep problems, anhedonia, and negative metacognitions are common in anxiety and depression. To examine the nature of the relationship between these features and the role of metacognitions, anhedonia, and quality of life in anxiety and depression, we conducted a complex network analysis with items of self-report measures assessing quality of life, sleep, negative thinking styles, anxiety, and depression.

Methods: Participants were 226 treatment seeking individuals with a primary DSM-5 diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. Node centrality, strength, expected influence, community, and bridge estimation were calculated using partial correlation coefficients and glasso regularization.

Results: Results revealed that anhedonia was the most central node followed by quality of life nodes. Moreover, anhedonia exhibited the highest strength and expected influence, which were both stable, reliable metrics within the network. Metacognitions were not central nodes in the network, but were strong bridge symptoms between communities.

Limitations: The results are limited by the cross-sectional nature of the data and the administration of self-report scales at one time-point, despite different rating anchors.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that anhedonia is a crucial element for the association between quality of life, sleep problems, and negative cognitions.