Exploring the role of anxiety sensitivity in amplifying momentary posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a transdiagnostic vulnerability factor that reflects the misinterpretation of anxiety-related sensations as harmful or dangerous. AS is believed to increase posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity, in part, by amplifying acute reactivity to trauma reminders. While AS has been consistently linked with PTSD symptom severity, little work has tested whether trait-level AS amplifies the effects of naturalistic trauma reminders on momentary PTSD symptomology. Trauma-exposed adults (N = 82) completed a baseline survey and diary follow-up in which PTSD symptoms were assessed three days/week for two weeks. Multilevel modeling was used to evaluate whether baseline, trait-level AS moderated the association between within-person increases in trauma reminders and PTSD symptoms. Unexpectedly, AS total score did not significantly moderate the relationship between momentary trauma reminders and PTSD symptom clusters. However, AS cognitive and social concerns significantly interacted with trauma reminders to predict greater PTSD avoidance symptoms and AS physical concerns blunted the effect of trauma reminders on negative alterations in cognition and mood (NACM). These findings add to growing literature linking AS with PTSD symptom severity and demonstrated that AS subfactors may differentially amplify the effects of traumatic reminders on PTSD symptom clusters.