DIFFERENTIAL EXPLANATORY EFFECTS OF ANXIETY SENSITVITY IN THE RELATION BETWEEN EMOTIONAL NON-ACCEPTANCE AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS SYMPTOMS AMONG TRAUMA-EXPOSED TREATMENT-SEEKING SMOKERS

Anxiety sensitivity, defined as the extent to which individuals believe anxiety-related sensations have harmful consequences, may play an important explanatory role in the relation between emotional non-acceptance and the expression of traumatic stress symptoms among trauma-exposed smokers. The current investigation examined whether lower-order facets of anxiety sensitivity (cognitive, physical, and social concerns) differentially explain the relation between emotional non-acceptance and posttraumatic stress symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance, arousal) among trauma-exposed daily smokers (N = 169, 46% female; Mage = 41, SD = 12.3). Anxiety sensitivity and its lower order facets of cognitive and social concerns were found to explain the relations between emotional non-acceptance and avoidance and arousal posttraumatic stress symptoms. Moreover, anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns explained these relations above and beyond the other two facets. The present findings suggest cognitive-based anxiety sensitivity concerns may play a mechainistic role in the expression of certain posttraumatic stress symptoms among trauma-exposed daily smokers.