The excessive utilisation of social networking sites affects the symptom severity across patients with anxiety disorders

Despite the well-known undesired effects of problematic social networking sites (SNSs) use, the studies performed with the psychiatric population are still scarce. The objective of this research is to discover whether problematic SNS use affects symptom severity among patients with anxiety disorder (AD). One-hundred patients with AD and 100 healthy controls (HCs) participated. State-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) and social media addiction scale (SMAS) were administered. In order to reveal the associations between SNSs use and anxiety symptoms, Pearson correlations and linear regression analyses were performed. According to our results, the state and trait anxiety were positively correlated with virtual communication scores among AD patients. HCs' trait anxiety was associated with both SMAS subtests; however, the state anxiety was not in a relationship with problematic SNSs use. Our study demonstrated the negative effects of problematic SNS use on AD. The clinicians should consider SNSs use patterns while managing the treatment of AD.