Blendermann, Mary
(2024)
Anxiety, worry, and subjective difficulty concentrating: Examining concurrent and prospective symptom relationships in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Difficulty concentrating is an understudied cognitive phenomenon, despite its status as a diagnostic criterion for generalized anxiety disorder and contributor to clinically significant distress and impairment. Existing theoretical accounts of the observed relationship between worry and subjective difficulty concentrating rely on a deficit model, in which impairments in trait attentional control render anxious individuals vulnerable to pathological worry. However, worse attentional task performance is not reliably associated with subjective difficulty concentrating in daily life. Alternatively, anxiety could be framed as a source of attentional interference via its primary cognitive manifestation, worry. The present study examined concurrent and prospective associations between anxiety (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21), worry (Penn State Worry Questionnaire), and subjective difficulty concentrating (Attentional Control Scale) in an adult sample (N = 723, 70.86% female) aged 19-81 years (M = 34, SD = 14.70). Data were drawn from a larger study of psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Online surveys were administered at three timepoints: April/May 2020, July/August 2020, and September/October 2020. Two linear mixed-effects models were constructed to examine within- and between-person effects of anxiety on worry, and worry on difficulty concentrating, while controlling for clustering within individuals over time. Anxiety was associated with worry both between (b = 1.81, SE = 0.13, = 0.65, p < .001) and within (b = 0.84, SE = 0.11, = 0.12, p < .001) participants. Difficulty concentrating was associated with both between-person differences in average worry (b = 0.19, SE = 0.03, = 0.38, p < .001) and within-person variation in worry (b = 0.12, SE = 0.02, = 0.09, p < .001). A path analysis using structural equation modeling found that worry was a partial mediator of the longitudinal association between anxiety and difficulty concentrating, though this effect did not survive the addition of covariates. These preliminary findings support theoretical accounts of worry as a cognitive mechanism linking anxiety with subjective attentional problems. Future research should continue to examine mechanistic pathways by which worry may interfere with attention, with the goal of developing more effective interventions for anxiety-related difficulty concentrating and associated functional impairment.
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| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
10 January 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
29 September 2023 |
| Approval Date: |
10 January 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
30 November 2023 |
| Access Restriction: |
2 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 2 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
61 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Psychology |
| Degree: |
MS - Master of Science |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
anxiety, worry, attention, longitudinal |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Jan 2024 14:28 |
| Last Modified: |
10 Jan 2024 14:28 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/45585 |
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