The Role of Avoidance Coping and Illness Uncertainty in the Relationship Between Transition Readiness and Health Anxiety.

Purpose: The transition to college is associated with numerous stressors, including environmental changes, increased academic expectations, and changes in social support, all of which may be exacerbated by the added responsibility of managing a chronic medical condition. Huang (2019) proposed a model examining the relationships between coping styles, transition readiness, and health anxiety, and suggested that greater transition readiness is associated with adaptive coping strategies and less health anxiety. However, there are limited findings as to how poor transition readiness relates to health anxiety. Therefore, the current study tested a serial mediation model (i.e., poor transition readiness → avoidance coping → illness uncertainty → health anxiety).

Design And Methods: College students (N = 194) with a chronic medical condition completed self-report questionnaires.

Results: Results indicated several direct effects among the modeled variables and a significant poor transition readiness → avoidance coping → illness uncertainty → health anxiety serial mediation (path adb = 0.438, 95% CI = 0.153 to 0.913).

Conclusions: Worse transition readiness was associated with increased avoidance as a coping mechanism, which in turn is associated with increased illness uncertainty, and ultimately health anxiety. The current findings identified possible drivers of health anxiety in college students with a chronic medical condition.

Practice Implications: These findings highlight that good transition readiness skills may buffer against maladaptive avoidance, illness uncertainty, and health anxiety. Modules aimed at improving healthcare management, avoidance, and illness uncertainty may be beneficial additions to interventions to reduce health anxiety.