Symposia
Improved Use of Research Evidence
Hayley E. Fitzgerald, M.A.
Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts
Danielle Hoyt, M.A.
Graduate Student
Rutgers
Piscataway, New Jersey
M. Alexandra Kredlow, Ph.D.
Tufts University
Medford, Massachusetts
Jasper Smits, Ph.D.
Professor
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Brad B. Schmidt, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Florida State University, Psychology Department
Tallahassee, Florida
Donald Edmondson, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
New York, New York
Michael Otto, Ph.D.
Professor
Boston University
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts
Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for various psychopathology and negative health behaviors. Accordingly, AS may be a suitable intervention target for preventative treatments: i.e., directly targeting AS may reduce the likelihood of subsequent development of psychopathology and maladaptive behaviors. To illuminate the potential efficacy of targeting AS for prevention efforts, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies that fit a prevention model: i.e., participants were not selected on the basis of an extant diagnosis, AS was targeted as the relevant mechanistic variable, and the efficacy of AS-targeted treatment was evaluated for an associated clinical condition (e.g., insomnia, alcohol overuse, depression) using a controlled clinical trial design. Using a pair of raters, we identified 28 studies (1,998 participants) meeting criteria for this meta-analysis. Compared to control conditions, AS-targeted interventions evidenced a moderate effect size for alleviating AS from pre- to post-treatment (d = 0.54, p < .001). From pre-treatment to short-term follow-up, AS-targeted interventions approached a large effect size (d = 0.78, p < .001). However, the effect size for long-term follow-up was not statistically significant (d = 0.29). For the goal of intervening with related clinical/behavioral outcomes, we found that AS interventions yield small-to-moderate effect sizes for the three examined timepoints (d’s = 0.20-0.41, p’s < .05) compared to control conditions. This suggests that alleviating AS may prevent the development of other psychopathology and negative health behaviors, and is supported as a mechanistic target for behavior change using the NIH Science of Behavior Change model (https://commonfund.nih.gov/behaviorchange). These findings help validate that AS appears to be a modifiable mechanistic target, suitable as the focus of prevention interventions. Additionally, our findings relate to ABCT’s 2022 theme as it highlights brief interventions that can inform emergency interventions to be used at a time when mental health symptoms are rising across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic.