Anxiety Sensitivity as a Malleable Mechanistic Target for Prevention Interventions: A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Brief Treatment Interventions

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a transdiagnostic risk factor and potential treatment target for prevention of associated psychopathology and negative health behaviors. We conducted a meta-analysis evaluating the efficacy of brief interventions in at-risk samples for reducing AS and associated clinical/behavioral outcomes (e.g., depression, alcohol use) across 28 studies (1,998 participants). AS targeted interventions, compared with control conditions, evidenced a significant moderate effect size for alleviating AS from pre- to posttreatment (d = 0.54) and approached a large effect size from pretreatment to short-term follow-up (d = 0.78). The effect size for long-term follow-up did not reach significance (d = 0.29). For clinical/behavioral outcomes, AS interventions demonstrated significant small-to-moderate effect sizes for the three timepoints examined (d's = 0.20-0.41). Our findings help validate AS as a modifiable mechanistic target for prevention efforts. Public Health Significance Statement Anxiety sensitivity (AS) and associated clinical outcomes (including anxiety, depression, sleep, trauma-related, obsessive-compulsive-related, alcohol, and pain) are malleable with brief AS-focused interventions. This has important prevention implications, as it indicates that treating AS may reduce the likelihood of the subsequent development of clinical disorders.