Parental problem drinking and anxiety disorder symptoms in adult offspring: examining the mediating role of anxiety sensitivity components.

Preliminary studies have implicated childhood exposure to parental problem drinking as a possible factor in the development of anxiety sensitivity (AS). The present retrospective study was designed to examine the role of exposure to distressing parental problem drinking behaviors, over and above the role of parental alcoholism, in the development of various AS components (psychological, physical, and social concerns) in the offspring. We also examined the possible mediating role of AS components in explaining relations between parental drinking problems and anxiety-related symptoms in the adult offspring. A sample of 213 university students provided retrospective reports of both distress related to parental drinking [Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST)] and parental alcoholism [maternal and paternal forms of the Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST)]. Participants also reported on their own current AS levels [AS Index (ASI)], general anxiety symptoms [State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait subscale (STAI-T)], and lifetime history of uncued panic attacks [Panic Attack Questionnaire-Revised (PAQ-R)]. Scores on the CAST predicted AS psychological and physical concerns (but not social concerns) over and above participant gender and parental alcoholism measured by the SMASTs. Moreover, AS psychological concerns proved a consistent modest mediator of the relations between parental problem drinking on the CAST and both general anxiety and uncued panic outcomes in the offspring. Thus, exposure to distressing parental problem drinking behavior may be one factor that contributes to elevated AS psychological concerns in the child, which in turn may contribute to the development of anxiety disorder symptoms in the offspring.

Does the social concerns component of the anxiety sensitivity index belong to the domain of anxiety sensitivity or the domain of negative evaluation sensitivity?

The present study utilized an exploratory factor-analytic approach (i.e. principal-components analysis; PCA) to investigate whether the Social Concerns component of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI [Peterson, R. A., & Reiss, S. (1992). Anxiety Sensitivity Index manual (2nd ed.). Worthington, OH: International Diagnostic Systems.]) is best conceptualized as belonging to the domain of anxiety sensitivity (AS) and/or the domain of negative evaluation sensitivity (NES). A sample of university students (N = 216) was administered measures of both NES (i.e. Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale; Leary, 1983) and AS (i.e. ASI). Participants' responses to the items comprising these measures were subjected to a PCA with oblique rotation. Factors representing the NES construct and the three lower-order AS constructs (i.e. AS Physical, Psychological and Social Concerns) were obtained. Subscales derived from these four factors were positively and significantly correlated with one another and loaded on a single higher-order factor labeled Threat Sensitivity. Thus, the present findings suggest that the AS Social Concerns factor is distinct from NES and the other lower-order components of AS. However, correlational analyses and higher-order PCA indicated that the AS Social Concerns factor taps a blend of AS and NES as well as something unique and distinct from both global AS and NES.