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 to control conditions, evidenced a significant moderate effect size for alleviating AS from pre- to post-treatment ( d = 0.54) and approached a large effect size from pre-treatment 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.