COVID-19 and Anxiety Sensitivity Across Two Studies in Argentina: Associations with COVID-19 Worry, Symptom Severity, Anxiety, and Functional Impairment

Abstract

Background The novel 2019 SARS2-Coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a devastating physical health, mental health, and economic impact, causing millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths. While COVID-19 has impacted the entire world, COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted low-income countries, particularly in South America, causing not only increased mortality but also increased associated mental health complaints. Anxiety sensitivity (AS), reflecting fear of anxiety-related physical sensations, may be particularly important to understand COVID-19 mental health effects among Latinx individuals in South America (Argentina). Past work suggests that Latinx individuals report greater somatization of mental health symptoms, and AS has been specifically linked to greater mental health symptoms. Yet, to date, no work has examined AS as a vulnerability factor for the negative mental health effects of COVID-19. Method Therefore, the current manuscript examined the association of AS with COVID-19 worry, functional impairment, anxiety, and symptom severity across two samples of adults in Argentina: a community sample (n = 105, M age = 38.58, SD = 14.07, 69.5% female) and a clinical sample comprised of individuals with an anxiety disorder (n = 99, M age = 34.99, SD = 10.83, 66.7% female). Results Results from the current study provide support for AS as a potential vulnerability factor for COVID-19-related mental health problems across both samples, and these effects were evident over and above the variance accounted for by age, sex, pre-existing medical conditions, and COVID-19 exposure. Conclusions These data identify AS as a potential intervention target to reduce COVID-19 mental health burden among adults in Argentina.

Profiles in COVID-19: peritraumatic stress symptoms and their relation with death anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and emotion dysregulation

“…Our results also indicated positive relations between anxiety sensitivity and peritraumatic stress symptoms. These findings are consistent with previous research that revealed a link between anxiety sensitivity and trauma-related symptoms in the aftermath of disease (Rogers et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ). It might be that individuals with elevated anxiety sensitivity respond more intensely to traumatic or stressful events, such as those related to the pandemic, and thus suffer from elevated distress (Rogers et al, 2021 ).…”

“…These findings are consistent with previous research that revealed a link between anxiety sensitivity and trauma-related symptoms in the aftermath of disease (Rogers et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ). It might be that individuals with elevated anxiety sensitivity respond more intensely to traumatic or stressful events, such as those related to the pandemic, and thus suffer from elevated distress (Rogers et al, 2021 ). Also, it is reasonable to suggest that during the current pandemic, the propensity to focus on one’s bodily signals and negatively appraise benign physical sensations increases the experience of threat and leads to perseveration and rumination about the possibility of contagion, illness, or even death, which in turn contributes to trauma-related symptomatology.…”

“…This tendency, in turn, may intensify the sense of threat in the face of the current pandemic and increase one’s vulnerability to trauma-related symptomatology. Individuals with high levels of anxiety sensitivity might interpret normal sensations as indications of having contracted COVID-19 or of other serious medical conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable at this time, and, as a result, experience elevated fears and worries (Rogers et al, 2021 ), as well as peritraumatic stress symptomatology.…”

First Assessment of the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Marine Recreational Fisheries

“…Although some studies on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic into mental health of different sectors have been already carried out in Argentina (e.g., Alomo et al, 2020;Johnson et al, 2020;Rogers et al, 2021), none of those studies FIGURE 1 | Map showing the number of respondents by country, (although some responses were obtained from recreational fishers living in outermost regions, they are not included in the map. For example, the French Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, and La Réunion, the Portuguese archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, or the Spanish Balearic and Canary Islands) both in the online survey of recreational fishers (the color refers to the number of responses) and in the expert consultation (in brackets the number of responses).…”

Investigation of the psychiatric factors that determine the fear of COVID‐19 in healthcare workers and hospital staff in a university hospital in Turkey

“…People with high anxiety sensitivity perceive harmless bodily stimuli as “dangerous,” therefore anxiety sensitivity was determined as a predictor of the fear of COVID‐19 (Taylor et al, 2007 ; Waqas et al, 2020 ). As far as we could detect, analysis of the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and fear of COVID‐19 is limited to a total of seven studies (Baiano et al, 2020 ; Malesza & Kaczmarek, 2021 ; Manning et al, 2021 ; Rogers et al, 2021 ; Sadeghzadeh et al, 2021 ; Waqas et al, 2020 ; Xia et al, 2021 ). Of these, three were performed on university students (Baiano et al, 2020 ; Sadeghzadeh et al, 2021 ; Waqas et al, 2020 ), three on the general population (Malesza & Kaczmarek, 2021 ; Manning et al, 2021 ; Rogers et al, 2021 ), and one on healthcare workers (Xia et al, 2021 ).…”