Anxiety Sensitivity and Reactivity to Asthma-Like Sensations Among Young Adults With Asthma.
College students with asthma who fear bodily sensations react more strongly to breathing restriction—screen for anxiety sensitivity before exposure-based interventions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked 87 college students with asthma to breathe through a thin straw for up to five minutes.
Before the test, each student filled out the Anxiety Sensitivity Index.
The team then tracked anxiety levels, asthma symptoms, and actual lung function.
What they found
Students who feared bodily sensations reported more panic and wheezing during the straw task.
Their lung scores also dropped more than students low on anxiety sensitivity.
In short, fear of feeling weird made the breathing challenge feel worse and act worse.
How this fits with other research
Faso et al. (2016) saw the same pattern with exercise: students high on anxiety sensitivity skipped workouts they had planned.
Both studies show that dread of body cues drives avoidance, whether the cue is wheezing or a racing heart.
Dunton et al. (2016) took a different angle; they used cell-phone prompts and found that real-life arguments and being outdoors sparked asthma symptoms in Hispanic teens within hours.
The lab straw test and the real-world EMA study line up: psychological stress can amplify asthma, just through different doors.
Why it matters
If a client with asthma dreads tight-chest feelings, exposure tasks like exercise or relaxation training may stall.
Screen for anxiety sensitivity first, then weave in graduated exposure and coping statements.
A quick five-item sub-score can flag who needs extra support before you ask them to run, breathe through a device, or practice diaphragmatic breathing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Anxiety sensitivity, particularly the physical concerns domain, is associated with more problematic asthma symptoms and greater functional limitations. It has been theorized that anxiety sensitivity fosters greater reactivity to asthma-related physical sensations; however, this theory has yet to be empirically tested. Thus, the present investigation sought to examine the role of anxiety sensitivity-physical concerns in terms of affective and physical reactivity to asthma-like symptoms. Participants were 101 undergraduates with asthma (76.2% female, Mage = 19.69 years, SD = 3.77 years, range = 18-49 years) who completed self-report measures and a straw-breathing task. Results indicated that after controlling for the effects of gender, asthma control (i.e., how well one's asthma symptoms are managed or controlled), and negative affectivity, greater levels of anxiety sensitivity-physical concerns significantly predicted greater anxiety (4.7% unique variance) and asthma symptoms (6.9% unique variance) and lower levels of lung function (4.4% unique variance) after the straw-breathing task. These findings suggest that individuals with asthma who are fearful of physiological arousal are a particularly "at-risk" population for poor asthma outcomes because of this greater reactivity and could benefit from interventions targeting anxiety sensitivity.
Behavior modification, 2016 · doi:10.1177/0145445515607047