# A person-oriented approach to social anxiety and depression: latent profiles and emotional functioning in adults

## TL;DR

This study identifies distinct subgroups of adults with social anxiety and depression, showing how these conditions co-occur and affect emotional functioning differently.

## Contribution

The study applies a person-oriented approach to reveal subgroups of adults with social anxiety and depression, highlighting their emotional functioning differences.

## Key findings

- Four subgroups were identified: Comorbid, Dysphoric, Socially Anxious, and Low Distress.
- The Comorbid subgroup showed the worst emotional functioning, with high negative affect and poor emotion regulation.
- The Low Distress subgroup reported the best emotional functioning.

## Abstract

Symptoms of social anxiety and depression often co-occur, but many questions remain about symptom-level co-occurrence and the heterogeneity of symptom presentations across individuals, as well as their emotional functioning. This study aimed to investigate the co-occurrence of social anxiety and depressive symptoms in adults and variations in emotional functioning linking symptom heterogeneity.

This study used a person-oriented approach, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), to identify distinct profiles (i.e., subgroups) in a UK adult sample (N = 222) varying in presentations of social anxiety and depressive symptoms. Further analyses examined between-profile differences in emotional functioning, including daily affect and emotion regulation.

Four profiles were identified: Comorbid (12.61%), Dysphoric (10.36%), Socially Anxious (36.94%), and Low Distress (40.09%), replicating the four-profile solution revealed in prior research on adolescents. The Comorbid subgroup reported the most pronounced emotional dysfunction, with higher daily negative affect, lower positive affect, and greater emotion dysregulation than the other three subgroups. The Low Distress subgroup reported the best emotional functioning.

The cross-sectional study design restricts our ability to evaluate the long-term stability of the identified profiles. Nevertheless, this study illuminates the diverse ways social anxiety and depression intertwine, underscoring the necessity of transdiagnostic interventions that cater to a wide range of symptom patterns and emotional functioning.