Anxiety sensitivity in adolescents: factor structure and relationships to trait anxiety and symptoms of anxiety disorders and depression

The current study examined the anxiety sensitivity construct in a large sam ple of normal Dutch adolescents aged 13-16 years (n=819), Children complete d the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman, W. K., Fleisig, W., Rabian, B. & Peterson, R. A. (1991). Journal of Clinical Child Psychol ogy, 20, 162-168) and measures of trait anxiety, anxiety disorder symptoms and depression. Results showed that (1) anxiety sensitivity as indexed by t he CASI seems to be a hierarchically organized construct with one higher-or der factor (i.e., anxiety sensitivity) and three or four lower-order factor s, (2) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety were strongly correlated, (3) anxiety sensitivity was substantially connected to symptoms of anxiety diso rders (in particular of panic disorder and agoraphobia) and depression, and (4) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety both accounted for unique propor tions of the variance in anxiety disorder symptoms. Altogether these findin gs are in agreement with those of previous research in adult and child popu lations, and further support the notion that anxiety sensitivity should be viewed as an unique factor of anxiety vulnerability. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.