Abstract

Although research on worry has increased over the past 15 years, few studies have examined worry in adolescents (Vasey, 1993). Recently, Dugas and his colleagues (1998) have developed a model of excessive worry that has been highly effective for predicting the tendency to worry in adults. This model proposes that four process variables are associated with excessive worry: intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, negative problem orientation, and cognitive avoidance. The goal of the present study is to explore the relationship between worry and these cognitive processes in an adolescent sample. Five hundred and twenty-eight participants aged 14 to 18 years completed questionnaires assessing worry, somatic anxiety symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, negative problem orientation, and cognitive avoidance. The first hypothesis, which predicted that each of the four process variables would make a unique contribution to the prediction of worry, was partially supported. Specifically, intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, and negative problem orientation made a unique contribution to the prediction of adolescent worry. The second hypothesis, which postulated that the four process variables would contribute to the discriminant function and that the discriminant function would be effective in classifying moderate and high worriers into their respective groups, was also partially supported. Results revealed that 72.8% of the original grouped cases were correctly classified. Finally, the third hypothesis, which proposed that intolerance of uncertainty would make the most important contribution to the prediction of worry and would be the most important variable in discriminating between moderate and high worry groups, was supported. Results suggest that intolerance of uncertainty may be a key construct implicated in the development and maintenance of worry in adolescence.