Posttraumatic Symptomatology and Alcohol Misuse Among Black College Students: Examining the Influence of Anxiety Sensitivity

Abstract

Objective: Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) have been found to be associated with alcohol (mis)use among college students. Anxiety sensitivity has been theoretically and empirically linked to both PTSS and alcohol (mis)use. The goal of the present study was to extend research by examining the relations among PTSS, anxiety sensitivity, and alcohol misuse within a sample of trauma-exposed Black college students. Methods: Participants were 121 Black undergraduate college students who endorsed exposure to a traumatic event (M age = 22.98, 77.7% female). Results: Correlational findings provide support for significant positive relations between PTSS and both anxiety sensitivity and alcohol misuse. Further, analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of anxiety sensitivity on alcohol misuse through PTSS. Specifically, greater anxiety sensitivity was associated with higher levels of PTSS, which, in turn, were associated with higher levels of alcohol misuse. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the assessment of anxiety sensitivity may be useful in identifying trauma-exposed Black individuals who are likely to experience alcohol misuse and the clinical utility of addressing PTSS in this population reporting anxiety sensitivity to possibly prevent alcohol misuse and related negative consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol misuse
• anxiety sensitivity
• black individuals
• college students
• posttraumatic stress symptoms
• trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by grant K23DA039327 and L30DA038349 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse grants awarded to the last author.

Notes

1 Among individuals attending Jackson State University, 63.6% identify as female. The larger sample comprised 66.5% females.

2 Of note, individuals who indicated any other extraordinarily stressful event not captured in the first 16 items as the most distressing had their written responses reviewed. Of the six individuals identified, it was unclear whether four would have met Criterion A (e.g., one reported relationship conflict broadly). For sensitivity purposes, we excluded these four individuals from the analysis, and then re-ran the models. Our findings remained the same, so we included the full sample in the final analysis.