The present study examined the concurrent and prospective relation between a select number of potential predictors and symptoms of anxiety among a high-risk community sample of 149 predominately African American children. Parent and child reports of anxiety were assessed in the first and seventh grade. Six domains of childhood risk factors (i.e., Loss-Death, Loss-Separation, Social Adversity, Negative Family Environment, Academic Difficulties, and Peer Rejection) were assessed using multiple informants in the first grade. Results indicated that children who experienced a more negative family environment, had a greater number of losses and deaths, and experienced academic failures in the first grade exhibited higher levels of anxiety (concurrently and/or at the six year follow-up). Findings provide empirical support to etiological models that posit both parental/familial and environmental factors contribute to the development of heightened anxiety in children.
Keywords risk factors; child anxiety; African AmericanAnxiety disorders are among the most common childhood psychiatric disorders, with prevalence rates ranging between 3% and 15%. 1 Children with anxiety disorders experience significant impairment in their academic, familial, and social functioning. For instance, many anxious children have difficulty attending and performing in school, struggle with making and maintaining friendships, have high levels of family conflict, and experience significant personal distress (e.g., see . In light of the high prevalence of anxiety disorders and the short-and long-term impairment they confer, attempts to identify early risk factors or predictors of anxiety are needed. Identifying predictors of psychopathology is critical for informing etiological models, facilitating early identification, and developing preventive interventions. 5 The focus of the present study was to address this issue by examining a broad range of theorized predictors of anxiety over a seven-year period, capitalizing on an existing community-based longitudinal data set from the Baltimore Prevention Research Center at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.Developmental models of anxiety disorders in children served as a guide for identifying potential predictors. These models generally stress the reciprocal relation between a number of child (e.g., behavioral inhibition and avoidance, distorted thinking), parental/familial (e.g., psychopathology, family environment, parenting behaviors), and environmental
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Author ManuscriptChild Psychiatry Hum Dev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 June 13. factors (e.g., poverty, traumatic experiences). [6][7][8][9] Utilizing primarily concurrent designs, studies attempting to empirically validate theorized risk factors have identified several familial and environmental correlates of anxiety (e.g., see Refs. 10 and 11). Although concurrent studies have been informative, longitudinal studies provide information concerning trajectories of development, suggest direc...