Distress tolerance and duration of past smoking cessation attempts.

2002/02/01 by Richard A. Brown, C. W. Lejuez, Carl W. Lejuez +2 · 619 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · #Anxiety #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Clinical psychology #Context (archaeology) #Distress #Dysphoria #Health, psychology, and well-being #Medicine #Nicotine #Nicotine withdrawal #Psychiatry #Psychology #Smoking Behavior and Cessation #Smoking cessation #Stressor

paper · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.111.1.180

published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111(1), 180-185 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 2002/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

The present study tested the hypothesis that limited ability to tolerate physical and psychological distress is associated with early relapse from smoking cessation. Specifically, the authors exposed 16 current smokers who had failed to sustain any previous quit attempt for more than 24 hr (immediate relapsers) and 16 smokers with at least 1 sustained quit attempt of 3 months or longer (delayed relapsers) to psychological (mental arithmetic) and physical (carbon dioxide inhalation-breath holding) stressors. Relative to delayed relapsers, immediate relapsers were characterized by higher baseline levels of affective vulnerability, by greater levels of dysphoria and urge to smoke after 12 hr of nicotine deprivation, and by less task persistence on the stressors, suggesting that these may be risk factors for early lapse in the context of quitting smoking.

Citations

• Longitudinal data analysis using generalized linear models

Cited by

• Childhood bullying victimization, emotion regulation, rumination, distress tolerance, and depressive symptoms: A cross‐national examination among young adults in seven countries
• Sex differences in smoking constructs and abstinence: The explanatory role of smoking outcome expectancies.
• A new look at the science of weight control: How acceptance and commitment strategies can address the challenge of self-regulation
• Anxiety sensitivity, distress tolerance, and discomfort intolerance in relation to coping and conformity motives for alcohol use and alcohol use problems among young adult drinkers
• Psychological flexibility mediates the relations between self-concealment and negative psychological outcomes
• Borderline Personality Disorder and Deliberate Self‐Harm: Does Experiential Avoidance Play a Role?
• Initial RCT of a distress tolerance treatment for individuals with substance use disorders
• A preliminary randomized controlled trial of a distress tolerance treatment for opioid dependent persons initiating buprenorphine
• Emotion and internal experience in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Reviewing the role of alexithymia, anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance
• An ALE meta-analytic comparison of verbal working memory tasks
• A Theory of Momentary Distress Tolerance: Toward Understanding Contextually Situated Choices to Engage With or Avoid Distress
• The role of emotional clarity and distress tolerance in deliberate self-harm in a sample of trauma-exposed inpatient adolescents at risk for suicide
• Distress tolerance and psychopathological symptoms and disorders: a review of the empirical literature among adults. [europepmc]
• Anxiety sensitivity, distress tolerance, and discomfort intolerance in relation to coping and conformity motives for alcohol use and alcohol use problems among young adult drinkers. [europepmc]
• Marijuana craving during a public speaking challenge: Understanding marijuana use vulnerability among women and those with social anxiety disorder. [europepmc]
• Posttraumatic stress and marijuana use coping motives: the mediating role of distress tolerance. [europepmc]
• Smoking-related correlates of depressive symptom dimensions in treatment-seeking smokers. [europepmc]
• Domain-general and domain-specific strategies for the assessment of distress intolerance. [europepmc]
• An examination of smoking outcome expectancies, smoking motives and trait worry in a sample of treatment-seeking smokers. [europepmc]
• Smoking in response to negative mood in men versus women as a function of distress tolerance. [europepmc]
• Panic attack history and anxiety sensitivity in relation to cognitive-based smoking processes among treatment-seeking daily smokers. [europepmc]
• Refining the measurement of distress intolerance. [europepmc]
• Parental reflective functioning is associated with tolerance of infant distress but not general distress: evidence for a specific relationship using a simulated baby paradigm. [europepmc]
• Mindfulness and rumination as predictors of persistence with a distress tolerance task. [europepmc]
• The role of smoking inflexibility/avoidance in the relation between anxiety sensitivity and tobacco use and beliefs among treatment-seeking smokers. [europepmc]
• Changes in distress intolerance and treatment outcome in a partial hospital setting. [europepmc]
• Stress modulates illness-course of substance use disorders: a translational review. [europepmc]
• Anxiety sensitivity mediates relations between emotional disorders and smoking. [europepmc]
• Intolerance for withdrawal discomfort and motivation predict voucher-based smoking treatment outcomes for smokers with substance use disorders. [europepmc]
• Validation of the Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale (AIS) among treatment-seeking smokers. [europepmc]
• Weight loss intervention for individuals with high internal disinhibition: design of the Acceptance Based Behavioral Intervention (ABBI) randomized controlled trial. [europepmc]
• Associations Between Anxiety Sensitivity, Negative Affect, and Smoking During a Self-Guided Smoking Cessation Attempt. [europepmc]
• Emotion dysregulation explains relations between sleep disturbance and smoking quit-related cognition and behavior. [europepmc]
• Distress intolerance during smoking cessation treatment. [europepmc]
• Cognitive control training for emotion-related impulsivity. [europepmc]
• Triple Network Resting State Connectivity Predicts Distress Tolerance and Is Associated with Cocaine Use. [europepmc]
• Associations between alcohol consumption and smoking variables among Latinx daily smokers. [europepmc]

Related

• Predictors of risk for smoking relapse in men and women: A prospective examination.
• Life before and after quitting smoking: An electronic diary study.
• Relapse Rate and Factors Related to Relapse in a 1-Year Follow-Up of Subjects Participating in a Smoking Cessation Program
• Change in mental health after smoking cessation: systematic review and meta-analysis
• Tobacco withdrawal system recovery time assessed during smoking satiety predicts smoking behavior change among individuals who smoke cigarettes daily.