Examination of Anxiety Sensitivity and Mindfulness in Adolescents
Rachel Ledbetter- Washburn University
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Linzi Gibson
Anxiety sensitivity increases the risk of developing anxiety disorders while mindfulness decreases such risk. The current study hypothesizes adolescents with high anxiety sensitivity will score significantly lower on mindfulness, adolescents with high anxiety sensitivity will score significantly lower on nonreactivity, nonjudging, describing, and acting with awareness, and adolescents with high anxiety sensitivity will score significantly higher on observing. Participants received the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Adolescents Short Form (FFMQ-A-SF) and Revised Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI-R). A significant negative correlation was found between CASI-R scores and the nonjudging subscale. No significant differences were found for the observing and describing subscales.
Examination of Anxiety Sensitivity and Mindfulness in Adolescents- Rachel Ledbetter
Wonderful presentation! I am so glad to see a presentation covering mindfulness and mental health. Given the negative correlation between CASI-R and one of the mindfulness sub-scales, do you have any recommendations for specific mindfulness exercises or techniques that might help to enhance overall health? Or that might help to encourage people to be more mindful?
Hi Whitney,
An effective mindfulness-based technique is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which can target negative experiences (i.e., anxiety symptoms) and focuses on accepting those experiences. Thanks for your question!
I think this is a great study!
I appreciate you addressing your sample size and how it could be a limitation. I am curious, did you happen to take the gender identity of your participants into consideration? Given that you plan to expand this research, it might be interesting to see if there are any trends between gender identity and opinions on mindfulness. The same consideration could be given to other demographics, but gender identity could be an interesting avenue!
Great work!
Hi Bobbie,
I haven’t done any analyses with gender identity yet. However, there is literature on gender identity and mindfulness levels. I think this would be a great direction for future research!