Abstract
The linking mechanisms underlying the association between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and anxiety and depression still await clarification. The current study investigated how the prospective and inhibitory components of IU related to anxiety and depression through worry and coping style. A repeated-measures design was utilized. IU and coping were measured at the first time point, worry at the second time points, and anxiety and depression were measured at the third time point. The relationship between these variables was explored using structural equation modelling. Results revealed that prospective IU led to increased worry, which further contributed to elevated levels of anxiety and depression. Inhibitory IU led to negative coping, which perpetuated worry and further resulted in anxiety and depression. The present study suggested that worry and negative coping were intermediated vulnerabilities linking IU to anxiety and depression. Further, the current study provided evidence supporting the assumption that prospective and inhibitory IU had divergent etiologic trajectories towards anxiety and depression.
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Notes
Given that uncertainty and stress embedded in everyday life could be an important contributor of psychological symptoms, the number of recent life events was also measured. Thus, the potential influence of uncertainty and stress in daily life can be controlled for. The pattern of results was generally the same whether or not the number of life events was included as a covariate. Relevant results were provided in Supplementary Materials.
We did not explicitly require our participants to be Chinese speaking. Considering that WJX is a local online survey platform, it would be difficult for a non-Chinese-speaking individual to become a registered user. Further, it would also be difficult for a non-Chinese-speaking individual to respond correctly to all the attention check questions. Thus, we believe that only data from Chinese-speaking individuals were included for analysis in the current study.
There are some variables (i.e., several items of the BAI and the BDI) with less than ten observations in the highest category (possibly because we used a non-clinical sample), and bootstrap draws may fail to have any observation in the highest category. Therefore, for variables with less than ten observations in the highest category, we collapsed the highest two or three categories to have at least ten observations.
p-values for the two indirect effects were .08 (anxiety) and .09 (depression). As p-values are calculated based on the normal distribution assumption and bias-corrected bootstrapped intervals allow for non-normality, the latter is more appropriate when examining indirect effects.
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This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant numbers 2019M650882].
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Yao, N., Yang, Y., Jiang, Y. et al. Intolerance of Uncertainty Relates to Anxiety and Depression Through Negative Coping and Worry: Evidence from a Repeated-Measures Study. J Cogn Ther 15, 42–56 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41811-021-00130-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41811-021-00130-w