Anxiety Sensitivity and Interoceptive Exposure: A Transdiagnostic Construct and Change Strategy
Section snippets
Specific Aims and Hypotheses
This paper had several aims, which we pursued by combining both quantitative and qualitative methods. Broadly, we were interested in providing preliminary evidence for the impact of the IE module of the UP in a sample of patients presenting with heterogeneous anxiety disorder diagnoses in two concurrent treatment trials.
First, in an attempt to replicate previous findings demonstrating that high levels of anxiety sensitivity are present in anxiety disorders other than PD (Naragon-Gainey, 2010,
Participants
This study’s sample included adults seeking treatment at an urban mental health center for anxiety and mood disorders, who were recruited to participate in one of two consecutive treatment outcome studies examining the efficacy of the UP. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were consistent across the two studies. To be eligible, participants needed to be 18 years or older in age, be fluent in English, be able to attend all treatment sessions and assessments, and be able to provide informed consent.
Missing Data
As is commonly the case in treatment research involving repeated assessments, missing data were present for some cases. In both of the trials of interest in this study, the ASI was administered at pretreatment, after Sessions 4, 8, and 12, and at posttreatment. A missing value analysis was conducted to examine the nature of the missing data (Little & Rubin, 2002) using SPSS 20 software. In addition to observed ASI scores, several variables were included in this analysis, in order to assist in
Discussion
Despite traditionally being associated with panic disorder (PD), both conceptually and empirically, the extant research using both clinical and nonclinical samples has shown that anxiety sensitivity is implicated in the development and maintenance of a broad range of emotional disorders (Naragon-Gainey, 2010, Schmidt et al., 2008). This implies that anxiety sensitivity may be an important transdiagnostic target of treatment, and that reductions in anxiety sensitivity may represent an important
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