Anxious by maternal - versus self-report: are they the same children?

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Assessing childhood anxiety is challenging due to informant discrepancies between parents and children.
• Understanding these differences is crucial for accurate identification and diagnosis of pediatric anxiety disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine factors predicting mother- and child-reported anxiety.
• To explore how children identified by each informant may differ.

Main Methods:

• Eighty-five children with anxiety disorders and 45 controls completed standardized anxiety questionnaires.
• Predictors of questionnaire scores were analyzed for both mother and child reports.
• Children were compared based on high versus low self-reported anxiety levels.

Main Results:

• Child self-reported anxiety was predicted by depressive symptoms, maternal psychopathology, and support-seeking coping (adjusted R² = .299).
• Maternal reports were predicted by child functioning and maternal psychopathology (adjusted R² = .305).
• High self-reporters exhibited more depressive symptoms and used more avoidant/support-seeking coping strategies.

Conclusions:

• Depressive symptoms and coping styles are key predictors of children's self-reported anxiety.
• Clinicians may overemphasize maternal reports for diagnosis, potentially missing children with high self-reported anxiety.
• This highlights the need to consider both child and maternal perspectives in anxiety assessment.