Anxiety sensitivity taxonicity across gender among youth

Abstract

The present investigation comparatively evaluated the latent class structure and parameters of anxiety sensitivity (AS) among female and male youth using the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index [Silverman, W. K., Fleisig, W., Rabian, B., & Peterson, R. A. (1991). Child Anxiety Sensitivity Index. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 20, 162–168]. Participants were 4462 adolescents (2189 females) in grades 7–12 ( M age = 15.6 years ). Consistent with prediction, taxometric analyses indicated the latent structure of AS was taxonic in both males and females, demonstrating the taxonic latent structure of AS is similarly observed across gender. Also consistent with prediction, the base rate of the AS taxon differed between genders—higher for females (12%) compared to males (7%). These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of AS and panic vulnerability among youth.