Introduction
depression, anxiety
DISEASE, DISEASES, DISORDERS
The goal of personalizing medicine—matching treatment at the level of the individual—to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of diseases has challenged researchers and clinicians for decadesParticularly with respect to anxiety disorders, there is a need for establishing robust markers of illness susceptibility and treatment responses so that these findings can be applied to key clinical decision making processes (e.g. optimal treatment selection for individual patients at their first clinic visit)There is currently no systematic process for the selection of anxiety treatments on the basis of empirically-supported markers of intervention successMethods to identify subgroups with shared characteristics that are associated with treatment outcomes are being exploredA recent study used clustering methods to determine phenotypes of depression treatment resistance based on the most salient self-reported clinical features (e.g. socio-demographic characteristics, symptom severity), with models showing acceptable ranges of predictive accuracy over treatment outcomesThree key components may be needed to optimally determine an individual’s response to a psychological intervention: (1) traits/skills the intervention is aimed at developing, (2) mechanistic factors that are related to the disease process, and (3) clinical outcomes.With respect to treatment-related characteristics, mindfulness training (MT) is increasingly being studied as a treatment for several mental health disordersTo more precisely identify psychological markers relevant to treatment outcomes, it would be informative to not only involve characteristics relevant to the disordered process under study—anxiety–, but also to mechanistic aspects involved in its formation/maintenance and that are targeted by the psychological intervention. Thus, one mechanism identified in developing/maintaining anxious symptoms is the particular way people respond, manage, or relate to their anxietyRecently, app-delivered MT has shown preliminary efficacy in symptom reduction: single-arm trials with anxious physiciansTo date, neuroimaging, genetic, and behavioral findings on anxiety disorders have not yet translated into robust and established markers of anxiety and its treatment outcomes to guide clinical recommendations