This review summarizes findings on the epidemiology and etiology of anxiety disorders among children and adolescents including separation anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social phobia, agoraphobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, also highlighting critical aspects of diagnosis, assessment, and treatment. Childhood and adolescence is the core risk phase for the development of anxiety symptoms and syndromes, ranging from transient mild symptoms to fullblown anxiety disorders. This article critically reviews epidemiological evidence covering prevalence, incidence, course, and risk factors. The core challenge in this age span is the derivation of developmentally more sensitive assessment methods. Identification of characteristics that could serve as solid predictors for onset, course, and outcome will require prospective designs that assess a wide range of putative vulnerability and risk factors. This type of information is important for improved early recognition and differential diagnosis as well as prevention and treatment in this age span. KeywordsAnxiety; Assessment; Diagnosis; Boundaries; Onset; Course; Outcome ANXIETYAND ANXIETY DISORDERS IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS AND ITS ASSESSMENTChildhood and adolescence is the core risk phase for the development of symptoms and syndromes of anxiety that may range from transient mild symptoms to full-blown anxiety disorders. Challenges from a research perspective include its reliable and clinically valid assessment to determine its prevalence and patterns of incidence, and the longitudinal characterization of its natural course to better understand what characteristics are solid predictors for more malignant courses as well as which are likely to be associated with benign patterns of course and outcome. This type of information is particularly needed from a clinical perspective to inform about improved early recognition and differential diagnosis as well as preventions and treatment in this age span.Anxiety refers to the brain response to danger, stimuli that an organism will actively attempt to avoid. This brain response is a basic emotion already present in infancy and childhood, * Corresponding author: Katja.Beesdo@tu-dresden.de (K. Beesdo). NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPsychiatr Clin North Am. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 January 11. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscriptwith expressions falling on a continuum from mild to severe. Anxiety is not typically pathological as it is adaptive in many scenarios when it facilitates avoidance of danger. Strong cross-species parallels-both in organisms' responses to danger and in the underlying brain circuitry engaged by threats-likely reflect these adaptive aspects of anxiety. 1 One frequent and established conceptualization is that anxiety becomes maladaptive when it interferes with functioning, for example when associated with avoidance behavior, most likely to occur when anxiety becomes overly frequent, severe, and persistent. 2 Thus, patholo...

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This is the submitted version of a work that was accepted for publication in: The Lancet Psychiatry. A definitive version was subsequently published in The Lancet Psychiatry 2.11 (2015), DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00332-6Mental and brain disorders represent the greatest health burden to Europe—not only for directly affected individuals, but also for their caregivers and the wider society. They incur substantial economic costs through direct (and indirect) health-care and welfare spending, and via productivity losses, all of which substantially affect European development. Funding for research to mitigate these effects lags far behind the cost of mental and brain disorders to society. Here, we describe a comprehensive, coordinated mental health research agenda for Europe and worldwide. This agenda was based on systematic reviews of published work and consensus decision making by multidisciplinary scientific experts and affected stakeholders (more than 1000 in total): individuals with mental health problems and their families, health-care workers, policy makers, and funders. We generated six priorities that will, over the next 5–10 years, help to close the biggest gaps in mental health research in Europe, and in turn overcome the substantial challenges caused by mental disordersThe research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, 2007–13) under grant agreement number 282586, and from the National R&D Internationalisation Programme of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under Reference ACI-PRO-2011- 1080. TW and GT acknowledge financial support from the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre and Dementia Unit awarded to South London and Maudsley National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in partnership with King’s College London. GT is supported by the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South London at King’s College London Foundation Trust. TW is supported by an NIHR Senior Investigator Award

The importance of strengthening research on the implementation and dissemination of promotion, prevention and service delivery interventions in the mental health field needs to be emphasized. The complexity of mental health and its broader conceptualisation requires complementary research approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration to better serve the needs of the European population.

Findings confirm the transmission of anxiety disorders from mother to offspring. Apart from maternal anxiety, self-perceived distress during pregnancy also emerged as a putative risk factor for adverse outcomes. The finding that maternal anxiety disorders before birth yielded less consistent associations, suggests that self-perceived distress during pregnancy might be seen as a putative moderator/mediator in the familial transmission of anxiety.