Parents with social anxiety disorder are more likely than parents with
other forms of anxiety to engage in behaviors that put their children at high
risk for developing angst of their own, according to a small study of
parent-child pairs conducted at Johns Hopkins Children’s
Center.
Authors of the federally funded
study say past research has linked parental anxiety to anxiety in children, but
it remained unclear whether people with certain anxiety disorders engaged more
often in anxiety-provoking behaviors. Based on the new study findings, they do.
A report on the team’s findings appears online ahead of print in the journal Child
Psychiatry and Human Development.
Specifically, the Johns Hopkins
researchers identified a subset of behaviors in parents with social anxiety
disorder — the most prevalent type of anxiety — and in doing so clarified some
of the confusion that has shrouded the trickle-down anxiety often seen in
parent-child pairs.
These behaviors included a lack
of or insufficient warmth and affection and high levels of criticism and doubt
leveled at the child. Such behaviors, the researchers say, are well known to
increase anxiety in children and — if engaged in chronically — can make it more
likely for children to develop a full-blown anxiety disorder of their own, the
investigators say.
“There is a broad range of
anxiety disorders so what we did was home in on social anxiety, and we found
that anxiety-promoting parental behaviors may be unique to the parent’s
diagnosis and not necessarily common to all those with anxiety,” says study
senior investigator, Golda Ginsburg, a child anxiety expert at Johns Hopkins
Children’s Center and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at The Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine.
The Hopkins team emphasizes that
the study did not directly examine whether the parents’ behaviors led to
anxiety in the children, but because there is plenty of evidence they do, the
researchers say physicians who treat parents with social anxiety should be on
alert about the potential impact on offspring.
“Parental social anxiety should
be considered a risk factor for childhood anxiety, and physicians who care for
parents with this disorder would be wise to discuss that risk with their
patients,” says Ginsburg.
Anxiety is the result of a
complex interplay between genes and environment, the researchers say, and while
there’s not much to be done about one’s genetic makeup, controlling external
factors can go a long way toward mitigating or preventing anxiety in the
offspring of anxious parents.
“Children with an inherited
propensity to anxiety do not just become anxious because of their genes, so
what we need are ways to prevent the environmental catalysts — in this case,
parental behaviors — from unlocking the underlying genetic mechanisms
responsible for the disease,” Ginsburg says.
The researchers analyzed
interactions between 66 anxious parents and their 66 children, ages 7 to 12.
Among the parents, 21 had been
previously diagnosed with social anxiety, and 45 had been diagnosed with
another anxiety disorder, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic
disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The parent-child pairs were asked
to work together on two tasks: prepare speeches about themselves and to
replicate increasingly complex designs using an Etch-a-Sketch device. The
participants were given five minutes for each task and worked in rooms under
video surveillance.
Using a scale of 1 to 5, the
researchers rated parental warmth and affection toward the child, criticism of
the child, expression of doubts about a child’s performance and ability to
complete the task, granting of autonomy, and parental over-control. Parents
diagnosed with social anxiety showed less warmth and affection toward their
children, criticized them more and more often expressed doubts about a child’s
ability to perform the task. There were no significant differences between
parents on controlling and autonomy-granting behavior.
Prevention of childhood anxiety
is critical because anxiety disorders affect one in five U.S. children but
often go unrecognized, researchers say. Delays in diagnosis and treatment can
lead to depression, substance abuse and poor academic performance throughout
childhood and well into adulthood.
The research was funded by the
National Institutes of Health.
Co-investigators on the study
were Meghan Crosby Budinger and Tess Drazdowski.
Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
No comments:
Post a Comment