Epidemiology of affective and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents

Epidemiologic studies in psychiatry in general, and child psychiatry in particular, represent a new focus. Certain disease entities in children and adolescents are better studied than others. Depression and anxiety of childhood seem to exemplify this statement. Depressive illness in childhood, although recently accepted in its full clinical implications, is a relatively well researched area with regard to epidemiology and prevalence. A number of factors have been identified as being influential such as age, race, socioeconomic status, sex, IQ, and source of information. Anxiety, however, still remains an area that is unexplored and not well researched. Very few studies have epidemiologically looked at the various types of anxiety and their prevalence in childhood and adolescence. Factors that further complicate this have been the relationships between anxiety and the normal developmental stages as well as the association between anxiety and depression. The various symptoms or subtypes of anxiety seem to be normal phenomena at different developmental stages. As a result, the identification of anxiety disorders, as they specifically influence children and adolescents, has been very much undervalued. Further research is needed to differentiate anxiety from depressive disorders and more specifically to distinguish among the different subtypes of anxiety disorders and to study their prevalence. It is only then that greater attention can be given to the course, prognosis, and treatment outcome of the anxiety disorders.