Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 41, Issue 4, December 2010, Pages 567-574
Behavior Therapy

Anxiety Symptomatology: The Association With Distress Tolerance and Anxiety Sensitivity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2010.04.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Research focused on psychological risk factors for anxiety psychopathology has led to better conceptualization of these conditions as well as pointed toward preventative interventions. Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been well-established as an anxiety risk factor, while distress tolerance (DT) is a related construct that has received little empirical exploration within the anxiety psychopathology literature. The current investigation sought to extend the existing literature by examining both DT and the relationship between DT and AS across a number of anxiety symptom dimensions, including panic, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive anxiety. Participants (N = 418) completed a number of measures that assessed DT, AS, anxiety symptomatology, and negative affect. Findings indicated that DT was uniquely associated with panic, obsessive compulsive, general worry, and social anxiety symptoms, but that DT and AS were not synergistically associated with each of these symptom dimensions. These findings indicate that an inability to tolerate emotional distress is associated with an increased vulnerability to experience certain anxiety symptoms.

Section snippets

Participants

The study sample was composed of 418 individuals from a large public university in the southeastern United States. Study participants were primarily female (71%) with an average age of 18.8 (SD = 2.39). The racial and ethnic makeup of the sample is as follows: Caucasian (69.4%), African American (11.5%), Hispanic/Latino (12.7%), Asian (4.5%), and other (1.9%).

Procedure

Participants registered for a testing session through the psychology department's secure and confidential electronic research sign-up

Results

Table 1 presents zero-order correlations between study variables as well as means and standard deviations. Consistent with expectation and prior research, the DTS was significantly and negatively associated with the OCIR, PDSR, PSWQ, and SIAS. The zero-order level of association suggested DT was moderately to substantially associated with these various anxiety symptom domains. The robustness of the relationship between the DTS and the anxiety symptom measures was further assessed by

Discussion

The primary aim of this study was to examine the relationship between DT and anxiety symptomatology. Though research has begun to explore the connection between DT and the important anxiety risk factor AS, to our knowledge this is the first study to examine DT and the association between DT and AS across a range of anxiety symptom dimensions. Consistent with expectation, DT was negatively associated with each of the anxiety symptom measures (panic, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive, and

Acknowledgement

This paper was supported in part by a National Institutes of Mental Health award (1F31 MH086174-01).

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