Experiential Avoidance as a Mediator between Intolerance of Uncertainty and Depression and Anxiety

Abstract

Depression and anxiety are the psychopathologies with the highest prevalences worldwide. They have shown to be correlated with intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and experiential avoidance (EA). We hypothesized that EA would mediate between IU and depression and anxiety and that the effect would hold after controlling for neuroticism, a trait strongly associated with depression and anxiety. We used data from self-report questionnaires measuring IU, EA, depression, anxiety and neuroticism of 441 undergraduate students (79% female) and conducted mediation analyses using PROCESS for IBM SPSS. We found a partial mediation effect of EA on the associations between IU and depression and anxiety, which stayed significant when controlling for neuroticism. Future studies should examine the direction of the relationships using experimental designs to deepen the understanding of the associations and the etiology and to improve prediction and treatment of depression and anxiety.