Intergenerational relations in childhood anxiety: A network approach.

Publisher: Blackwell Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 0404510 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1467-9450 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00365564 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Scand J Psychol Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: Oxford : Blackwell
Original Publication: Oslo : Scandinavian University Press

Intergenerational Relations* ; Anxiety Disorders*/psychology; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Anxiety ; Parents/psychology ; Mothers/psychology ; Fathers/psychology ; Parent-Child Relations

Objective: Family factors are assumed to play a central role in the development of childhood anxiety disorders. How child and parental anxiety symptoms are intertwined on a symptom and family level has not yet been examined. Such knowledge may lead to a more detailed understanding of the intergenerational relation in anxiety problems. The current study investigated the relation between anxiety in children and their parents at a symptom level using a network approach.
Method: Parents of 1,452 clinically referred children in the Netherlands completed questionnaires on anxiety about their children and themselves. We examined relations on a symptom level both within persons and between parents and children. In addition, we also compared the relations between parental and child anxiety symptoms in families with children with an anxiety disorder (n = 350) versus families with children who displayed other psychiatric diagnoses (n = 1,102).
Results: Anxiety symptom relations within persons were more intertwined than the symptom relations between family members. Between-person relations were found among similar anxiety symptoms, suggesting specific intergenerational relations. The feeling of being fearful was found to be a central and connecting symptom in all family members (fathers, mothers, and children). The relations between parental and child anxiety symptoms were more specific (i.e., among similar symptoms) in families with children with an anxiety disorder than in families with children with other types of psychopathologies.
Conclusions: This study found that anxiety symptom associations are present within the family on a detailed (symptom) level. This stresses the importance of future studies to examine factors responsible for this family-anxiety transmission.
(© 2023 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

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Keywords: Children; anxiety; family factors; intergenerational relation; network analysis

Date Created: 20231115 Date Completed: 20240318 Latest Revision: 20240318

20250114

10.1111/sjop.12983

37966048