WORRYING ABOUT WHAT? AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PHENOMENON OF WORRY AMONG STUDENTS OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNIVERSITY

Global disability is increasingly being associated with stress, anxiety and depression. As a corollary, studies have associated these psychological conditions with worry. Based on these considerations, it had been suggested that research on the content of worry can contribute to better understanding the role of worry in anxiety disorders. Towards this end, this paper investigated the extent of worrying and the contents of worry thoughts among students in the United Arab Emirates University using Wells' (1994) Anxious Thoughts Inventory (AnTI). The study further tested whether the sex, age, or marital status of the students influenced their extent of worrying. The findings consistently showed that the students only sometimes experienced social and meta-worry and almost never indulged in health worry. Furthermore, the extent and content of worry were not specific to the sex, age, or marital status of the participants. On the whole, worrying was more of the suppression of intrusive thoughts and functioned as an individual means of self-precaution and regulation, and a pragmatic way of coping and adapting to anxiety rather than being a causal factor for anxiety.