Anxiety symptomatology and perceived health in a community sample of African American adults: Moderating role of emotion regulation.

Date

2014-07

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Abstract

Though emotional health has been theoretically and empirically linked to physical health, the anxiety-physical health association in particular is not well understood for African American adults. This study examined anxiety as a specific correlate of perceived health in addition to testing the potential moderating role of emotion regulation, an index of how and when individuals modulate emotions, in the association for anxiety to perceived health. Study participants were 151 community-based African American adults who completed measures of anxiety symptomatology and emotion regulation in addition to responding to a self-report question of perceived health. Results showed that higher levels of anxiety symptomatology were associated with poorer health ratings for those who reported more limited access to emotion regulation strategies but not those who reported having more emotion regulation strategies. The findings suggest that anxiety-related distress and health problems may be interrelated when emotion regulation strategies are limited.

Description

Keywords

Anxiety, Health, Emotion regulation, African Americans

Citation

Copyright 2014 Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. This is a post-print version of a published paper that is available at http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-29268-001. Recommended Citation: Carter, Sierra E., and Rheeda L. Walker. "Anxiety symptomatology and perceived health in a community sample of African American adults: Moderating role of emotion regulation." Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 20, no. 3 (2014): 307-315: DOI:10.1037/a0035343. This item has been deposited in accordance with publisher copyright and licensing terms and with the author's permission.