A Pubertal Shift in Anxiety Reporting: Parent-child Discrepancies Intensify During Peri-Adolescence

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Peri-adolescence is a critical period for anxiety symptom onset and escalation.
• Discrepancies between parent and youth anxiety reports are common but poorly understood during this phase.
• Existing research inconsistently links these discrepancies to chronological age.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether pubertal stage, rather than chronological age, explains differences in parent- and youth-reported anxiety.
• To clarify how anxiety is perceived and experienced during peri-adolescent development.
• To explore the utility of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) for multi-informant anxiety assessment.

Main Methods:

• Two hundred peri-adolescents (ages 10-13) and their parents participated.
• Data collection included clinical interviews, anxiety rating scales, and the Pubertal Development Scale.
• Mixed-effects models and PCA were used to analyze informant discrepancies and multi-informant scores.

Main Results:

• More advanced pubertal stage correlated with greater anxiety report discrepancies.
• Discrepancies were driven by higher youth self-reports and stable parent ratings, particularly in clinically anxious youth.
• PCA yielded a single cross-informant factor that improved prediction of clinical severity and functioning.

Conclusions:

• Pubertal stage significantly influences how anxiety is reported by caregivers and adolescents.
• Assessment of peri-adolescent anxiety should account for pubertal development.
• Dimensional, developmentally sensitive approaches integrating multi-informant data are valuable for accurate assessment.