Anxiety Sensitivity Mediates the Association Between Post-Traumatic Stress Symptom Severity and Interoceptive Threat-Related Smoking Abstinence Expectancies Among World Trade Center Disaster-Exposed Smokers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bromet EJ ; Farris SG ; Gonzalez A ; Kotov R ; Luft BJ ; Mahaffey BL ; Paulus DJ ; Zvolensky MJ
• Description:
  Introduction: Anxiety sensitivity (fear of internal anxiety-relevant bodily sensations) is an individual difference variable that is associated with the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is also involved in the maintenance/relapse of smoking. Abstinence expectancies are crucial to smoking maintenance, yet, past work has not explored how PTSD symptom severity and anxiety sensitivity contribute to them. Method: Participants were 122 treatment-seeking daily smokers (36.1% female; Mage = 49.2, SD = 9.7; cigarettes per day: M = 18.3, SD = 15.2) who were exposed to the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001 and responded to an advertisement for a clinical smoking cessation trial. The indirect effect of anxiety sensitivity was tested in terms of the effect of PTSD symptom severity on smoking abstinence expectancies (i.e., anxiety sensitivity as a statistical mediator). Results: PTSD symptom severity was positively associated with interoceptive threat-related smoking abstinence expectancies: expecting harmful consequences (beta = .33, p < .001) and somatic symptoms (beta = .26, p = .007). PTSD symptom severity was also significantly associated with anxiety sensitivity (beta = .27, p = .003). Anxiety sensitivity mediated the association between PTSD symptom severity and expectancies about the harmful consequences (beta = .09, CI95% = .02-.21; deltaR2 = .076) and somatic symptoms (beta = .11, CI95% = .02-.24; deltaR2 = .123) from smoking abstinence, with medium effect sizes (K2 = .08 and .10, respectively). Conclusions: These data document the role of PTSD symptoms in threat-based expectancies about smoking abstinence and suggest anxiety sensitivity may underlie the associations between PTSD symptom severity and abstinence expectancies. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Environmental Exposure Men Mental Health Nicotine Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety September 11 Terrorist Attacks Smokers Stress, Psychological Tobacco Products Women

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• Keywords:
  9-11 Abstinence Anxiety Vulnerability Author Keywords: Trauma Cigarette Smoking Disaster Sites Expectancies Exposure Levels Humans Mental Stress Nicotine Dependence Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Psychological Effects PTSD Risk Factors Smoking Somatic Nervous System Statistical Analysis World Trade Center WTC

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• ISSN:
  0306-4603
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 6 ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  204-210
• Volume:
  51
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20050852
• Citation:
  Addict Behav 2015 Dec; 51:204-210
• Contact Point Address:
  Samantha G. Farris, The University of Houston, Department of Psychology, 126 Fred J. Heyne Building, Suite 104, Houston, Texas 77204-5502
• Email:
  sgfarris@uh.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• Performing Organization:
  State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Addictive Behaviors
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9774eba468f154405298bfe4f090b1b62a391fd62286bb9ea10315ca22d16ae92848c3c0a205ba1633faa3bcdf92a60fc03ddf73d03dd12d371daffeae7a8740
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/211052/cdc_211052_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 363.91 KB ]