Abstract

The aim of this study was to test whether worry(perseverative cognition) mediates the link between stress and somatic symptoms. For this purpose, a sample of 287 college students completed the questionnaires: Life Stess Scale Revised, the Worry Scale of Life Stress for college students, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and the Somatic Symptoms Scale. The data was analysed to assess the mediating effects of worry with the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS 7.0. The results showed that worry mediated the relationship between the strength of the stress and the severity of the somatic symptoms. Therefore, perseverative cognition manifested in worry can be thought of as a mediator through which the stressor exercises its effects on the somatic symptoms or the body's systems. In addition, the partial mediation model of worry was more fit to population's data and better than the complete mediation model of worry in model comparison. Meanwhile, the mediation models of this study was more fit to women than men. This result indicated there was sex difference in the tests of mediation model of worry about somatization. Finally, the implications and suggestions, the limitations of this study and the directions for future study were also discussed. (Korean J Str Res 2011;19:361∼369)

• Keywords: Stress, Somatization, Worry, Structural Equation Modeling