Mediating effect of fear of happiness between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety among Lebanese adults.

Background: Fear of Happiness represent the negative feelings that emerge as one apprehends or experiences the positive emotion of happiness.This experience is intrinsically related to both intolerance of uncertainty, the apprehension of the unknown, and to symptoms of anxiety.While all of these factors are common among the Lebanese population, especially given the hardships it has been through for the past few years, no research has yet studied the three of them in Lebanon.Therefore, this paper tackles the role of fear of happiness as a mediator between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety among Lebanese adults. Methods:The present study is a cross-sectional investigation that recruited 905 Lebanese adults, of which 60% were women, and where the mean age was 29.90 years old.The data was collected through a survey in Arabic, that included the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS-12) which yields two subscales: prospective and inhibitory anxiety, the Generalized Anxiety Scale-5 (GAD-5), and the Fear of Happiness Scale (FHS) in their validated Arabic versions.Results: Fear of happiness partially mediated the association between prospective and inhibitory anxiety and anxiety; higher prospective / inhibitory anxiety were significantly associated with higher fear of happiness and directly associated with higher anxiety.Finally, fear of happiness was significantly and directly associated with higher anxiety Conclusion:The results of the present study indicated that fear of happiness does have a mediating role between prospective/inhibitory anxiety and anxiety levels among Lebanese adults.Interventions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and educational programs that tackle these factors may be beneficial to these individuals to relieve symptoms of anxiety and to tackle other negative thought patterns.