Marijuana coping motives interact with marijuana use frequency to predict anxious arousal, panic related catastrophic thinking, and worry among current marijuana users

Abstract

The present investigation evaluated whether coping motives for marijuana use interacted with past 30-day frequency of marijuana use in relation to anxiety-relevant variables among community-recruited young adult marijuana users (n=149). As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and total years of marijuana use, the interaction between frequency of past 30-day marijuana use and coping motives predicted anxious arousal symptoms, agoraphobic cognitions, and worry. Marijuana users who demonstrated high use frequency and high coping motives demonstrated the highest levels of anxiety across these anxiety-relevant criterion variables. No such effects were evident, as expected, for depressive symptoms, offering explanatory specificity for anxiety relative to depressive factors. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding the role of marijuana use and coping motives in regard to anxiety vulnerability.

General Anxiety Disorder Symptoms, Tension Reduction, and Marijuana Use Among Young Adult Females

“…For these women, marijuana use may represent a reliable method that they expect will decrease tension and anxiety. Previous studies have established an association between marijuana use and anxiety-related constructs, that is, agoraphobic cognitions, anxiety arousal, 27,43 affective liability, 28 negative affect, 29 and worry. 24 Our findings add support to this link between anxiety and marijuana use by demonstrating that TRR expectancies mediate the relationship between GAD symptoms and use in a nontreatment-seeking sample of young women.…”

“…24 In general, substance abusers frequently characterize their use as a means for coping with psychiatric symptoms. [25][26][27] Among marijuana users, coping motives have been found to be associated with a variety of anxiety-related constructs: agoraphobic cognitions, anxiety arousal, 27 affective liability, 28 negative affect, 29 and worry. 24 Little is known however, about the relationship between coping motives and GAD, the most common anxiety disorder among women.…”

Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Severity and Marijuana Use Coping Motives: A Test of the Mediating Role of Non-Judgmental Acceptance within a Trauma-Exposed Community Sample

“…In the present study, current marijuana use status was defined as responses of one or greater on this item, indicating at least low levels of use within the past 30 days. The MSHQ has been employed successfully in past research Bonn-Miller et al 2008).…”

Reliability and validity of the Marijuana Motives Measure among young adult frequent cannabis users and associations with cannabis dependence

“…Finally, several studies using the MMM have found associations between specific motives and frequency of cannabis use and cannabis dependence (Bonn-Miller & Zvolensky, 2009;Bonn-Miller, Zvolensky, Bernstein, & Stickle, 2008;Buckner, Bonn-Miller, Zvolensky, & Schmidt, 2007;Bujarski, Norberg, & Copeland, 2012;Chabrol et al, 2005;Fox, Towe, Stephens, Walker, & Roffman, 2011;Johnson, Mullin, Marshall, Bonn-Miller, & Zvolensky, 2010;Mitchell, Zvolensky, Marshall, Bonn-Miller, & Vujanovic, 2007;Simons, Correia, & Carey, 2000;Zvolensky et al, 2007). However, most of these studies were conducted in predominantly 'white' student populations and/or populations with relatively infrequent patterns of cannabis use.…”