Panic Attack History and Anxiety Sensitivity in Relation to Cognitive-Based Smoking Processes Among Treatment-Seeking Daily Smokers

Abstract

Although past research has demonstrated significant associations between panic attacks and certain aspects of cigarette smoking (e.g., severity of nicotine withdrawal; lower abstinence rates, and negative affect reduction motives), the present findings suggest that AS may be more relevant to understanding beliefs about and motives for smoking behavior as well as perceptions of cessation-related difficulties.

An Examination of the Indirect Effect of Anxiety Sensitivity in terms of Asthma and Smoking Cessation Processes

“…Research suggests that anxiety sensitivity serves as a risk factor for both smoking and asthma, resulting in poorer outcomes in both domains. For example, anxiety sensitivity predicts panic in response to asthma symptoms, poorer asthma control, and poorer asthma related quality of life (Avallone, McLeish, Luberto, & Bernstein, 2012;Carr, Lehrer, & Hochron, 1995;McLeish, Zvolensky, & Luberto, 2011) as well as greater perceived barriers to cessation and increased withdrawal symptoms and risk of lapse and relapse during a quit attempt (Johnson, Farris, Schmidt, Smits, & Zvolensky, 2013;Johnson, Stewart, Rosenfield, Steeves, & Zvolensky, 2012;Mullane et al, 2008).…”

Evaluating the role of anxiety sensitivity in barriers to cessation and reasons for quitting among smokers with asthma

“…Among smokers without asthma, AS is associated with greater barriers for cessation (Gonzalez, Zvolensky, Vujanovic, Leyro, & Marshall, 2008;Gregor, Zvolensky, McLeish, Bernstein, & Morissette, 2008;Johnson, Farris, Schmidt, Smits, & Zvolensky, 2013) as well as both intrinsic (i.e. health concerns) and extrinsic (i.e.…”

Anxiety Sensitivity and Pre-Cessation Smoking Processes: Testing the Independent and Combined Mediating Effects of Negative Affect–Reduction Expectancies and Motives

“…Smokers with higher levels of anxiety sensitivity perceive quitting as more difficult (Johnson et al, 2013) and report more intense nicotine withdrawal during early phases of quitting (Johnson et al, 2012). Higher levels of anxiety sensitivity are also related to greater odds of cessation failure (Assayag et al, 2012).…”

“…Specifically, holding stronger beliefs about the anticipated negative affect-reduction properties of smoking (outcome expectancies; Brandon & Baker, 1991) and negative affect-reduction reasons for smoking (motives; McCarthy et al, 2010) are two central processes thought to underlie the anxiety sensitivity-smoking relationships. Indeed, higher levels of anxiety sensitivity are associated with negative affect-reduction smoking motives and expectancies (Battista et al, 2008;Johnson et al, 2013;.…”

“…Anxiety sensitivity was also expected to be predictive of higher average levels of self-reported nicotine withdrawal and smoking urges during the 3 weeks before the quit day. These relations were expected to be mediated by both the independent and the combined indirect effects of negative affect-reduction smoking expectancies and motives, which would be evident after adjusting for variables known to co-occur with anxiety sensitivity and smoking (Johnson et al, 2013).…”