Skip to content

Marijuana coping motives interact with marijuana use frequency to predict anxious arousal, panic related catastrophic thinking, and worry among current marijuana users.

Marcel O Bonn-Miller, Michael J Zvolensky, Amit Bernstein, Timothy R Stickle

Depression and Anxiety 2008 DOI: 10.1002/da.20370 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational cohort Peer reviewed
Sample size 149
Population Community-recruited young adult marijuana users
Topics Cannabis
Citations 29
Key findings High frequency of marijuana use combined with high coping motives predicted elevated anxiety-related symptoms, but not depressive symptoms.

Abstract

The present investigation evaluated whether coping motives for marijuana use interacted with past 30-day frequency of marijuana use in relation to anxiety-relevant variables among community-recruited young adult marijuana users (n=149). As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and total years of marijuana use, the interaction between frequency of past 30-day marijuana use and coping motives predicted anxious arousal symptoms, agoraphobic cognitions, and worry. Marijuana users who demonstrated high use frequency and high coping motives demonstrated the highest levels of anxiety across these anxiety-relevant criterion variables. No such effects were evident, as expected, for depressive symptoms, offering explanatory specificity for anxiety relative to depressive factors. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding the role of marijuana use and coping motives in regard to anxiety vulnerability.