Anxiety mediates the relationship between childhood adversity and perceived current life stress in a diverse sample of emerging adults

Abstract

Childhood adversity is associated with increased current life stress in adulthood and is often influenced by subjective appraisals related to anxiety. Anxiety is a multifaceted construct that includes variability in assumed presentation. The current study assessed the unique mediating effects of both trait and symptom-based anxiety on childhood adversity and current life stress. Undergraduate students enrolled in a large, urban, public university (N = 638, 89% non-Caucasian) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Perceived Stress Scale. A parallel mediation demonstrated that both trait and symptom-based anxiety fully mediated the relationship between childhood adversity and perceived current life stress and that these effects are statistically different (b = .112, SE = .020, 95% CI [.074, .153]). Thus, we demonstrated a unique mediating role of two different anxiety indices that varied in strength of their respective contributions to the model.

Keywords

• childhood adversity
• life stress
• anxiety
• emerging adulthood
• self-report