Examining the transdiagnostic role of coping motives and experiential avoidance in the relationship between generalized anxiety disorder and addictive behaviours.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is highly comorbid with substance and behavioural addictions, but little is known about the psychosocial factors that underpin these relationships. The present study examined whether coping motives mediate the relationship between GAD symptom severity and the severity of symptoms of problematic alcohol use, cannabis use, gambling, and gaming more strongly at high levels of experiential avoidance.

METHOD: Participants (N = 1,221) were Canadian adults recruited via Prolific, a crowdsourcing platform. They completed online self-report measures assessing GAD symptom severity, substance use and addictive behaviour severity, coping motives for each substance and addictive behaviour, and experiential avoidance.

RESULTS

GAD symptom severity, substance use and addictive behaviour severity, coping motives, and experiential avoidance were positively associated in bivariate correlations (r = .08 to .77). In moderated mediation analyses, coping motives mediated the positive relationship between GAD symptom severity and both problematic alcohol use (95% BCa CI [ .002, .011]) and gambling symptom severity (95% BCa CI [ .002, .009]) at low and high levels of experiential avoidance (ps < .001), such that these effects became stronger at higher levels of experiential avoidance. No significant moderated mediation effects were observed in the cannabis and gaming models.

DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that coping motives and experiential avoidance may interact to increase risk for both problematic alcohol use and gambling among individuals with elevated GAD symptoms, providing some empirical support for transdiagnostic conceptualizations of addictive behaviours. Such individuals may benefit from transdiagnostic psychological interventions that target maladaptive coping and experiential avoidance.