The indirect effect of negative emotionality via alcohol craving on abstinence self-efficacy among women in alcohol treatment

•Negative emotionality appears linked to women’s alcohol use and craving.•Alcohol abstinence self-efficacy (AASE) covaries with treatment outcomes.•Our work reveal links between negative emotions, alcohol craving, and AASE.•Alcohol craving indirectly influenced links between negative emotions and AASE.•Targeting emotion-linked craving may improve women’s AASE and treatment outcomes. Women with alcohol use disorder (AUD) often present to treatment with heightened negative emotionality, including negative affect, anxiety, stress, and depression. Negative emotionality might impact women’s alcohol abstinence self-efficacy (AASE), or confidence in their ability to remain sober, which is an important predictor of treatment outcomes. It is also plausible that other variables, such as alcohol craving, influence AASE. The present work examined the indirect effect of negative emotionality on AASE via alcohol craving as a mediator cross-sectionally among a sample of women enrolled in AUD treatment reporting co-occurring depressive symptoms (N = 73). Participants completed baseline measures of negative emotionality (e.g. anxiety and depression symptoms, stress, negative affect), alcohol craving, and AASE. All indices of negative emotionality were positively correlated with each other and alcohol craving (r’s ranging from 0.244 to 0.671) and all but depression were inversely associated with AASE (r’s ranging from -0.341 to -0.234; p