Understanding Adolescent Worry: The Application of a Cognitive Model

The relationship between worry and 4 cognitive variables, intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, negative problem orientation, and cognitive avoidance, was examined in an adolescent sample of 528 boys and girls aged 14–18. The participants completed questionnaires assessing worry, somatic anxiety symptoms, and the variables mentioned above. The results show that (a) intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, and negative problem orientation each account for a significant amount of variance in adolescent worry scores in the multiple regression, and (b) the discriminant function derived from the 4 variables is effective in classifying moderate and high worriers into their respective groups (72.8% correct classification). Furthermore, analyses demonstrate that intolerance of uncertainty has the strongest association withworry scores and is the most important variable in discriminating between moderate and high adolescent worriers. These results suggest that intolerance of uncertainty plays a key role in our understanding of adolescent worry.