Anxiety Modifies the Association between Fatigue and Verbal Fluency in Cognitively Normal Adults.
OBJECTIVE
In the present study, we examined the association between self-reported fatigue and verbal fluency in a sample of healthy adults. Given the co-occurrence of anxiety and depressive symptoms with fatigue, we examined whether these affective dimensions would modify this association.


METHODS
Fifty-nine cognitively normal adults took part in the study. Fatigue symptoms were assessed using the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), depressive symptomatology with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and situational anxiety using the state subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S).We used a composite measure of verbal fluency comprising letter fluency and semantic fluency as the outcome measure.


RESULTS
Multiple regression analyses revealed higher fatigue was associated with better verbal fluency when STAI-S scores were high. We did not find a significant interaction between the FSS and CES-D.


CONCLUSIONS
Greater situational anxiety levels may buffer against the negative influence of fatigue on verbal fluency in non-clinical populations, consistent with previous research showing that moderate levels of anxiety can benefit cognitive function. Whether subthreshold depressive symptoms modify the association between fatigue and verbal fluency is still unclear. Measures that assess different symptom dimensions specific to depression would help to clarify this issue.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Deirdre M
DM
O'Shea
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Liselotte
L
De Wit
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Sarah M
SM
Szymkowicz
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Molly E
ME
McLaren
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Francis
F
Talty
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 , Gainesville, FL32610, USA.|Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida, PO Box 100244, Gainesville, FL32610, USA.
Vonetta M
VM
Dotson
Anxiety; Cognitively normal adults; Depressive symptoms; Fatigue; Verbal fluency