Intolerance of uncertainty as a factor linking obsessive-compulsive symptoms, health anxiety and concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the United States

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had a significant impact on public health, economic activity, and mental health as it spread across the globe. Research from past pandemics links excessive anxiety about illness-related threats with symptoms of health anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In the present study, we investigated whether intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a psychological vulnerability factor involved in both OCD and health anxiety, accounts for a portion of the relationship between these symptoms and fear of COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak in the Unites States. We administered measures of concern about the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Threat Scale; CTS), health anxiety, and OCD symptoms to a large sample of community adults in the United States (n = 738) recruited through Amazon MTurk. Results revealed that concern about COVID-19 was moderately and positively correlated with both OCD and health anxiety symptoms, as well as IU. Moreover, regression analyses found that IU partially accounted for the connections between concern about the spread of COVID-19 and OCD and health anxiety symptoms. These results highlight IU as a potential mechanism connecting OCD and health anxiety to anxiety about pandemic threats. Clinical implications, limitations, and future directions for research are discussed. •Mturk participants completed surveys in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.•Fear of the spread of COVID-19 related to OCD symptoms and health anxiety.•IU significantly predicted concerns about the spread of COVID-19.•IU accounted for a portion of the relationship between OCD symptoms, health anxiety, and fear of COVID-19.