ReviewThe impact of methodological and measurement factors on transdiagnostic associations with intolerance of uncertainty: A meta-analysis
Section snippets
Inroduction
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) refers to “an individual's dispositional incapacity to endure the aversive response triggered by the perceived absence of salient, key, or sufficient information, and sustained by the associated perception of uncertainty” (Carleton, 2016a, p. 31). IU is a dispositional trait that manifests as negative beliefs and reactions to unpredictable events regardless of their probability, and accounts for cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses to uncertainty (
Protocol and registration
The protocol for this study was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on 20th April 2018 (registration number CRD42018092293). Additional self-report measures of IU and of differing syndromes to those specified in the protocol were identified during the literature searches, and thus the final list of main outcome measures for analysis is more extensive than detailed in PROSPERO. The meta-analysis is reported according to the recommendations of
Effects across all studies
The random effects were first estimated across all studies, followed by estimates by syndrome (defined by symptom measure), clinical (vs. non-clinical) status, age group (child vs. adult, average sample age), sex distribution, IU measure, and symptom measure. The influence of sample size was also examined. The overall random-effects point estimate (95% CI) was 0.51 (0.50–0.52, p < .001, N = 335 independent effects). The Q-value was significant 2024.01 (p < .001) and the I2 was indicative of
The jury is in: IU is certainly transdiagnostic
The first aim of this meta-analysis was to quantify the strengths of association between IU and symptoms of depression, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, GAD, OCD, and eating disorders. The extensive body of evidence across most of these symptom domains facilitated the calculation of precise point estimates with narrow confidence intervals. There was no evidence that publication bias or study sample size influenced results. The strengths of association between IU and
Role of funding sources
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Contributors
Peter McEvoy contributed to development of the research questions, design, method, analysis, and manuscript writing. Matthew Hyett contributed to development of the research questions, design, method, data extraction, analysis, and manuscript writing. Sarah Shihata contributed to the manuscript writing. Jordan Price contributed to the development of the research questions, design, method, and data extraction. Laura Strachan contributed to the design and data extraction. All authors reviewed and
Declaration of Competing Interest
All authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.
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