The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) is a 16-item self-report instrument that provides a measure of anxiety sensitivity (AS), a psychological construct that has been shown to be a central cognitive risk factor relevant to anxiety and its disorders (section: mental health).
Note: The ASI was only used in the Pilot questionnaire of assessment 1A, and was filled in by 2730 adult Lifelines participants.
After the pilot, the ASI was dropped in favor of other personality tests: GAS, Type D, and NEO.

AS is defined as the fear of arousal-related sensations (e.g., fear of heart palpitations), which arise from beliefs that these anxiety-related sensations have harmful consequences ¹⁾.

Taylor and colleagues developed the ASI-3 in order to assess the basic dimensions of anxiety sensitivity: (1) fear of physical symptoms, (2) fear of cognitive symptoms, and (3) fear of publicly observable symptoms ²⁾. Each dimension predicts different types of psychopathology (e.g., fear of physical symptoms is most closely associated with panic disorder). The analysis of the dimensions of anxiety sensitivity provides are more nuanced way of examining the relationship between specific types of anxiety sensitivity and specific types of psychopathology.

The validity and reliability of the 16-item ASI was tested in the general population ³⁾ and more recently in a population of Dutch young adults ⁴⁾.
There are several links between a high ASI-score and the development of disorders such as phobia and panic disorders, amongst others ⁵⁾.

Participants score 16 items on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from “this does not apply to me at all” to “this does very much apply to me”.