Evaluating a Mediation Model of Anxiety and Smoking Expectancies among Spanish-speaking Latinx Adult Smokers: Exploring the Role of Anxiety Sensitivity

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable mortality in the US, including among Latinx individuals. While anxiety symptoms and disorders are among the variables most consistently implicated in smoking outcomes and processes, there is no empirical work identifying individual difference factors that may underlie relations between anxiety symptoms and smoking outcome expectancies among Latinx smokers. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine anxiety sensitivity as an indirect variable underlying the relationship between anxiety symptoms and smoking expectancies among Spanish-speaking Latinx smokers. Participants included 363 Spanish-speaking Latinx daily smokers (58.7% female, Mage = 33.3 years, SD = 9.81). Results indicated that individual differences in anxiety symptoms had a significant indirect effect on negative reinforcement, negative consequence, positive reinforcement, and appetite-weight control expectancies for smoking through anxiety sensitivity. These novel findings suggest that anxiety sensitivity is relevant to better understanding the association between anxiety symptoms and smoking expectancies among Latinx smokers.