Anxiety sensitivity and smoking outcome expectancies among Spanish-speaking Latinx adult smokers.

Abstract

Smoking is among the most important health behaviors linked to premature death and disability among the Latinx population. Yet there is limited understanding of whether transdiagnostic factors like anxiety sensitivity may help explain smoking expectancies among Spanish-speaking Latinx smokers. The present investigation evaluated anxiety sensitivity in regard to smoking outcome expectancy factors among a large sample of adult Latinx smokers. Participants were 363 Spanish-speaking Latinx daily smokers (58.7% female, Mage = 33.3 years, SD = 9.8). As expected, anxiety sensitivity was significantly related to expectancies of negative reinforcement and negative personal consequences. Anxiety sensitivity also was a significant predictor of smoking expectancies of appetite control and positive reinforcement. The present study provides novel empirical evidence that anxiety sensitivity explains a notable degree of variance in smoking outcome expectancies over the variance accounted for by a range of theoretically relevant covariates among Latinx smokers. These results highlight the clinical utility in assessing anxiety sensitivity among Latinx smokers and focusing greater attention on this construct in efforts to better understand cognitive-based smoking expectancies among this population.

Anxiety-related constructs and smoking outcome expectancies among Latinx smokers.

“…Additionally, post hoc analyses indicated that when probable anxiety disorder was utilized as the anxiety phenotype predictor instead of the dimensional variable of anxiety symptom severity, the results remained consistent. Past research among Spanish-speaking Latinx smokers has found anxiety sensitivity to be related to negative and positive smoking outcome expectancies (Shepherd et al, 2022; Zvolensky, Bakhshaie, et al, 2019). The present findings extend such work to an English-speaking Latinx sample, distinguish the anxiety sensitivity effects from anxiety phenotypes (anxiety symptoms or probable anxiety disorder), and empirically document incremental validity relations.…”

“…Participants are asked to rate the likelihood of each smoking-related consequence occurring on a 10-point Likert scale (0 = completely unlikely to 9 = completely likely ). The S-SCQ consists of four subscales and has well-demonstrated psychometric properties (Myers et al, 2003), including among Latinx smokers (Zvolensky, Bakhshaie, et al, 2019). The four subscales include negative consequences (e.g., “Smoking is taking years off my life.”), positive reinforcement (e.g., “When I smoke the taste is pleasant.”), negative reinforcement (e.g., “Cigarettes help me deal with anger.”), and appetite–weight control (e.g., “Cigarettes keep me from eating more than I should.”).…”

“…These findings are important from a public health perspective given the pervasive comorbidity that is present among smokers in terms of negative mood states and psychopathology (Ziedonis et al, 2008) and poorer prognostic outcomes for such smokers (Garey et al, 2020). Among Spanish-speaking Latinx smokers from the United States, greater anxiety symptoms have been associated with negative health consequences, negative reinforcement, and appetite–weight control smoking outcome expectancies (Zvolensky, Bakhshaie, et al, 2019). Other research has found that anxiety sensitivity (e.g., belief that anxiety and anxiety-related sensations have harmful personal consequences; Leventhal & Zvolensky, 2015) mediates relations between the severity of anxiety symptoms and positive and negative smoking outcome expectancies among Spanish-speaking Latinx smokers from the United States (Shepherd et al, 2022).…”

The moderating role of anxiety sensitivity in terms of fatigue severity and e-cigarette use expectancies

“…Then, two independent stepwise linear regression models were conducted to examine fatigue severity and anxiety sensitivity in relation to negative expectancies and positive expectancies of e-cigarette use. Step 1 of each model included theoretically relevant covariates of age, sex, income, education, e-cigarette use frequency, and dual use status (Harrell et al, 2014; Hendricks et al, 2015; Pokhrel et al, 2014; Zvolensky et al, 2018b, 2019b). Step 2 included fatigue severity and anxiety sensitivity.…”

Latinx Individuals Who Smoke Daily with and without a Probable Anxiety Disorder: Differences in Smoking Behavior and Beliefs about Abstinence

“…Within the available literature, there is evidence that greater anxiety symptoms, measured dimensionally, are associated with negative and positive outcome expectancies among Latinx Spanish-speaking smokers from the US [ 28 ] as well as greater perceived barriers for quitting and severity of interoceptive symptoms when trying to quit [ 29 ]. Related research has found that the cognitive factor of anxiety sensitivity, the belief that anxiety symptoms cause personal harm [ 30 ], is related to early smoking lapse among Latinx smokers from Mexico [ 31 ], negative and positive smoking outcome expectancies [ 32 ], as well as cigarette dependence and perceived barriers for quitting among Latinx Spanish-speaking smokers from the US [ 29 , 33 ]. Although anxiety symptoms and anxiety sensitivity are related, they are distinct constructs [ 34 ].…”