Child and parent reports of childhood anxiety: differences in coping styles

This study compares children anxious only on parent report (PR) with those anxious on self-report (SR) and self- and parent report (SPR) to examine the reasons for the reporting differences. Sixty-five children aged 7-12 years who met criteria for one or more Axis I anxiety disorders (25% with comorbid nonanxiety diagnoses) completed standardized measures of anxiety, depression, and coping style. Parents completed measures of child psychopathology and adult coping style. Assessing clinicians completed the Global Assessment of Functioning. All parents endorsed anxiety in their children. Based on their responses on standardized self-report measures of anxiety, children were classified as endorsing anxiety (SPR group) or not endorsing anxiety (PR group). Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that children in the SPR group endorsed more depression and employed a greater variety of coping strategies than children in the PR group. The two groups did not differ on parent or clinician measures. These findings suggest that reporting differences may be related to differences in coping styles in anxious children. SPR children may over report anxiety symptoms due to feelings of decreased self-worth associated with depressive thinking, whereas PR children may be able to distract themselves from their anxieties. The lack of difference in functioning between the two groups suggests that self-report anxiety questionnaire scores are not necessarily indicative of severity.