BACKGROUND: The escalating prevalence of mental health issues among young adults, set against the backdrop of a global healthcare system under pressure, underscores the necessity for cultivating a resilient medical workforce. This study investigates the influence of socio-economic status (SES) on psychological well-being, with a particular focus on Anxiety Sensitivity (AS) and Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) among first-year medical students. Understanding the psychological dimensions affecting medical students is crucial for fostering a future medical workforce that is both capable and mentally healthy.
METHODS: This research involved 321 first-year medical students, evaluated using the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ), Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (UI-18), and the Student Self-Efficacy Scale (SSE), alongside socio-economic categorization. Employing descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and correlation analyses, the study aimed at elucidating the SES impact on AS and IU, among other psychological constructs.
RESULTS: The analysis revealed significant SES-related differences, especially in the realms of Anxiety Sensitivity and Intolerance of Uncertainty. Notably, ASI_C (cognitive concerns) exhibited strong positive correlations with both UI_A (reduced ability to act due to IU) (Pearson\'s r = 0.562, p < 0.001) and UI_B (burden due to IU) (Pearson\'s r = 0.605, p < 0.001), highlighting the link between cognitive aspects of anxiety and uncertainty intolerance. Furthermore, UI_C (vigilance due to IU) was significantly associated with SES (F(4, 316) = 2.719, p = 0.030, η² = 0.033), pointing to the complex ways in which socio-economic factors modulate responses to uncertainty. Self-efficacy emerged as a significant counterbalance, showing protective associations against the adverse effects of heightened Anxiety Sensitivity and Intolerance of Uncertainty.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that lower socio-economic status is associated with higher levels of Anxiety Sensitivity and Intolerance of Uncertainty, which contribute to increased stress among first-year medical students. Additionally, Self-Efficacy emerged as a significant protective factor, mitigating the expressions of AS and IU. Although medical faculties cannot change SES characteristics within their student body, recognizing its impact allows for the development of tailored support systems to address the unique challenges faced by students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. This study underscores the necessity of considering social diversity, particularly regarding AS and IU characteristics, to foster a supportive and effective medical education environment with an outlook on sustainable mental health in a demanding work context.

This three-wave longitudinal study of 297 community adults (mean age = 38.66 years, 67% female) examined how anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance work together to explain the relation between perfectionism and anxious and depressive symptoms over 2 years. Participants completed measures of self-critical (SC) and personal standards (PS) higher-order dimensions of perfectionism, anxiety sensitivity, experiential avoidance, and anxious and depressive symptoms at Time 1. Participants completed measures of anxiety sensitivity, experiential avoidance, and symptoms again at Time 2 one year later, and symptoms measures again at Time 3 two years after baseline. Moderated mediation analyses showed that for those with higher Time 1 experiential avoidance, Time 1 SC perfectionism was indirectly related to Time 3 anxious arousal symptoms through Time 2 anxiety sensitivity. For those with moderate to higher Time 1 anxiety sensitivity, Time 1 SC perfectionism was indirectly associated with Time 3 general distress and anxious arousal symptoms through Time 2 experiential avoidance. These moderated mediation effects were not found for PS perfectionism. These results support anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance as moderating and mediating processes that may be important treatment targets for reducing vulnerability to anxious and depressive symptoms over the longer-term in SC perfectionistic individuals.

UNASSIGNED: Anxiety sensitivity is associated with the onset and progression of various emotional disorders. The Anxiety Sensitivity Index 3 (ASI-3) is a self-report scale for anxiety sensitivity. This study aims to resolve the ongoing controversy about the factorial structure of the ASI-3 using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), a newly advanced technique.
UNASSIGNED: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), ESEM, bifactor-CFA, and bifactor-ESEM were used to investigate the factorial structure of the ASI-3. Three hundred Korean college students (female = 195, age: 21.74 ± 2.34) filled out the ASI-3 and the Distress Intolerance Index.
UNASSIGNED: The bifactor-ESEM model exhibited a model fit superior to the 4 alternative models. The general factor showed higher loadings and reliability and explained common variance than the 3 specific factors in the bifactor-ESEM model. Most items reflected the global factor, but 6 items (Items 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 17) from the specific factors had insufficient loadings. Moreover, the global factor of the ASI-3 was associated with distress intolerance scores, indicating adequate criterion-related validity.
UNASSIGNED: The factorial structure of the ASI-3 is best described as a bifactor-ESEM model for Korean college students. Additionally, the bifactor-ESEM model of the ASI-3 includes a strong global factor that explains a large amount of the observed variance in the ASI-3 items.

UNASSIGNED: Individuals with panic disorder (PD) often exhibit a proclivity to conclude that an imminent catastrophe looms, drawing such conclusions from limited physical information. Reflection impulsivity, characterized by decision-making without adequate information, likely affects this bias. This study examines the relationship between reflection impulsivity and self-report impulsive features in individuals with PD.
UNASSIGNED: Fifty patients with PD and 50 healthy controls (HC) participated to this study. Reflection impulsivity was assessed using the Information Sampling Task (IST), while trait impulsivity was measured using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS). Participants also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (P&A), and Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3).
UNASSIGNED: Individuals with PD exhibited higher reflection impulsivity compared to HC. Increased reflection impulsivity correlated positively with PD severity as assessed by the P&A and cognitive concerns measured by ASI-3. No significant correlations were found with physical or social concerns. PD patients had higher BIS scores than HC. Higher trait impulsivity was linked to recurrent emergency department visits among PD patients.
UNASSIGNED: The findings of this study reveal the notion of increased impulsivity among individuals with PD and its relationship with cognitive concerns, as well as recurrent visits to the emergency department stemming from panic attacks.

Research on dual combustible and electronic nicotine use among Latinx persons is needed to better understand patterns of use because this group is an established tobacco disparities population. Negative emotional symptoms and related processes (e.g., reactive transdiagnostic vulnerabilities) have been among the most prominent factors linked to the onset, maintenance, and relapse of smoking. As such, the current study sought to compare levels of mental health symptoms among combustible users compared to dual combustible and electronic users among Latinx persons who smoke. The current sample consisted of 297 adult Latinx daily cigarette smokers (Mage = 35.90 years; SD = 8.87; age range 18-61; 36.4% female), of which 92 reported current dual use of an e-cigarette (Mage = 33.34 years; SD = 7.75; age range 19-60; 28.3% female). Differences in anxiety, depression, anxiety sensitivity, emotion dysregulation, and distress tolerance were examined, and we hypothesized that dual users would showcase higher mental health problems. Results indicated that adult Latinx dual users evidenced greater levels of anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, anxiety sensitivity, and lower levels of distress tolerance compared to combustible users. The current study sheds light on the clinical importance of affective differences among dual versus combustible Latinx smokers.

UNASSIGNED: Friends are major sources of social support for adolescents. This support may sometimes lead to co-rumination when the problem is discussed exhaustively with a focus on negative feelings. Co-rumination has been associated with some forms of anxiety, including clinical symptoms. Further studies are needed to investigate whether this association extends to additional and non-clinical forms of anxiety in youth. This study aimed to explore the relationship between co-rumination and trait anxiety, test anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity using secondary data.
UNASSIGNED: In this 2019 cross-sectional study, 1204 (59% girls) Canadian 6th-grade early adolescents (ages 11-12) and 11th-grade late adolescents (ages 16-17) completed self-report questionnaires measuring co-rumination, trait anxiety, test anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity.
UNASSIGNED: Co-rumination was associated with anxiety sensitivity in early adolescents and with trait anxiety, test anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity in late adolescents.
UNASSIGNED: Developmental factors may play a role in the association between co-rumination and different forms of anxiety. Anxiety sensitivity may appear alongside co-rumination in early adolescence and may broaden to trait and test anxiety in late adolescence. These results extend our understanding of the relationship between co-rumination and anxiety, as well as generate hypotheses for future longitudinal studies.

UNASSIGNED: Asthma and COPD are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, impacting over 260 million people and causing over 3 million deaths globally (Momtaz-Manesh, S. et al., 2023). Pulmonary symptoms can impair tolerance and increase the negative attribution of anxiety sensations. Reciprocally, anxiety associated with dyspnea can induce hyperventilation. This perpetuates a cycle of symptom exacerbation and poor treatment adherence. Managing labored breathing is challenging due to its subjective nature. Dyspnea is a sufferer\'s endless pursuit to breathe, rendering its experience as truly, \"Sisyphean.\"
UNASSIGNED: This study explored the role of anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance in dyspnea among adults with asthma and COPD (N = 107). A single-group cross-sectional research design was used. Data from pulmonologist-diagnosed adults with asthma and COPD were collected across various clinics in Delhi-NCR.
UNASSIGNED: It was found that anxiety sensitivity, distress tolerance and dyspnea were strongly correlated. Also, an increase in anxiety sensitivity was strongly predictive of dyspnea severity. Further, distress tolerance acted as a partial mediator between anxiety sensitivity and dyspnea.
UNASSIGNED: Improving distress tolerance can act as an adjuvant in effective dyspnea management.

Youth exposed to community violence and neighborhood stressors report devastating mental health consequences. Black youth are at greater risk and experience community violence at rates higher than other youth populations. An underexplored mental health consequence is anxiety sensitivity, the fear of experiencing anxiety-related symptoms, which contributes to maladaptive coping strategies and the development and severity of other mental health problems. This study utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine socio-ecological risk and protective factors associated with community violence exposure and anxiety sensitivity among low-income Black youth. Survey data are from a sample of 320 Black youth residing in public and subsidized housing in a Northeastern city in the United States. Results indicated that neighborhood risk, parenting behaviors, and exposure to delinquent peers were indirectly associated with anxiety sensitivity, which occurred through community violence exposure. Additionally, neighborhood risks had direct effects on anxiety sensitivity. Results point to the need to incorporate social and environmental factors in interventions addressing anxiety sensitivity among Black youth in urban communities.

Hispanic/Latinx (hereafter Latinx) persons are an established tobacco disparities population in the United States (US). Past work has suggested that individual differences in anxiety sensitivity, or the fear of arousal-based sensations, is one important cognitive construct for smoking maintenance and relapse among Latinx persons who smoke. However, previous research has not examined if anxiety sensitivity is associated with motivational facets of smoking dependence among this tobacco disparities population. In the current study, anxiety sensitivity was explored in terms of smoking motives for primary, secondary, and overall cigarette dependence. Participants included 336 English-speaking Latinx adults in the US who smoked cigarettes daily (Mage = 35.53, SD = 8.65, 37.3% Female). Results indicated that anxiety sensitivity was statistically significantly and positively related to higher primary and secondary dependence motives and marginally statistically significant to cigarette dependence; findings were evident after adjusting for numerous theoretically relevant variables (e.g., depression). Overall, the current study is the first to document linkages between anxiety sensitivity and numerous motivational bases of tobacco dependence among Latinx persons who smoke from the US.

OBJECTIVE: Anxiety sensitivity (AS) refers to fear of anxiety-related sensory arousal and has been revealed to be associated with increased psychological distress and mental problems. Although Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3) has been confirmed to be effective in evaluating this construct, whether it is consistently applicable in college students is still elusive. The present study aimed to examine the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of Chinese version of ASI-3 (C-ASI-3) among college students experiencing campus lockdown due to novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
METHODS: A total of 1532 Chinese college students (397, 25.9% males) aged between 16 and 25 were included in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the factor structure of C-ASI-3. Multi-group CFA was conducted for analysis of measurement invariance with regard to gender. McDonald\'s omega values were computed for examination of scale reliability. For criterion, convergent, and divergent validity, average variance extracted (AVE) values for C-ASI-3 subscales, difference between square root of AVE for each factor and inter-factor correlation, as well as pearson correlation and partial correlation between the C-ASI-3 and other three scales, including the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19 S) were evaluated.
RESULTS: The C-ASI-3 presented a three-factor scale structure with fit indices being as follows: χ2/df = 11.590, CFI = 0.938, RMSEA = 0.083, SRMR = 0.042. Strict measurement invariance was reached across gender. Regarding convergent validity, the C-ASI-3 had a high correlation with the DASS-21 (r = 0.597, p < 0.01) and the STAI (r = 0.504, p < 0.01). All AVE values for C-ASI-3 subscales were above 0.5. In terms of divergent validity, the C-ASI-3 had medium correlation with the FCV-19 S (r = 0.360, p < 0.01). Square of root of AVE for each factor was higher that inter-factor correlation. McDonald\'s omega values of the three dimensions ranged from 0.898 ~ 0.958.
CONCLUSIONS: The C-ASI-3 has acceptable psychometric properties among college students. College students with different gender have consistent understanding on the scale construct.