Anxiety sensitivity, suffocation fear, trait anxiety, and breath-holding duration as predictors of response to carbon dioxide challenge

We investigated predictors of response to carbon dioxide challenge (i.e. breathing deeply and rapidly into a paper bag for 5 min) in college students. Zero-order correlations indicated that scores on both the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI: Reiss, Peterson, Gursky & McNally, 1986) and the Suffocation Fear Scale (SFS: Rachman & Taylor, 1994), predicted anxious response to challenge, whereas a behavioral measure of carbon dioxide sensitivity (i.e. maximum breath-holding duration) and scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait form (STAI-T: Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1983) did not. Multiple regression revealed that all four variables remained in the model, entering in the following order: ASI, breath-fielding duration, SFS, and STAI-T. These data suggest that psychological variables reflecting fears of bodily sensations are better predictors of response to challenge than either behavioral sensitivity to carbon dioxide or general trait anxiety. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd