Anxiety sensitivity and posttraumatic stress symptoms among public safety personnel: A longitudinal analysis

Public safety personnel (PSP) are likely to encounter multiple traumatic events and are thus more likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder than the general population. It is important, then, to identify modifiable factors that increase the risk for posttraumatic stress disorder so that preventative treatments may be developed. Anxiety sensitivity (AS; the fear of physiological arousal sensations) has been identified as one such potential modifiable risk factor. However, research on the longitudinal, reciprocal association between AS and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in those experiencing multiple traumas is limited. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between AS and PTSS in PSP over the course of 1 year.

PSP (N = 272) recruited via social media completed self-report measures of PTSS, trauma exposure, and AS at baseline, 6 months, and 1 year.

Cross-lagged panel analysis did not reveal cross-lagged associations between AS and PTSS. Instead, only Wave 2 trauma exposure negatively predicted Wave 3 PTSS.

Findings may be due to strong autoregressive associations (e.g., baseline PTSS predicting future PTSS) or may indicate that the association between AS and PTSS is more difficult to disentangle in populations that have already experienced multiple traumatic events. Future research should investigate this association among PSP who have yet to be exposed to potentially traumatic events to further elucidate whether AS is a risk factor worth intervention (or not) in this population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).