Parents suffering with anxiety - help needed for research

[nomorepanic]

IMPROVING TREATMENT FOR PARENTS AFFECTED BY ANXIETY


If you are a parent who has been affected by an anxiety problem, we would like to invite you to help us with some research.

Lots of evidence shows that anxiety problems can run in families, but the reasons behind this are not fully understood. Our project aims to find out more about this. We hope this will help us better advise parents who suffer from anxiety on how to help their children avoid similar problems in the future.

If you are a parent of a child aged between 2 and 18, and you have been affected by any anxiety problem such as OCD, panic, agoraphobia or social phobia, we would like to invite you to help us with this work. Even if you have experienced these kinds of problems and have recovered, we would still like to hear from you. The research is completely confidential. You won’t have to meet with a researcher or come to any appointments. We would just ask you to complete some brief questionnaires for us, which we’ll send to you by post.

As a thank-you for your time, we will be able to offer you a £10 gift voucher for a shop of your choice. We will also send you a report of the outcome of the research when it is finished.

The research is led by Professors Derek Bolton, Paul Salkovskis and David Clark. For more information, please contact Dr Emma Girling (Research Clinical Psychologist):
Email: emma.girling@iop.kcl.ac.uk (emma.girling@iop.kcl.ac.uk)
Tel: 0207 8480762 (Wednesdays only)
Work mobile: 07910 134984 (Monday to Friday)
Address: PO Box 77, Henry Wellcome Building, Institute of Psychiatry, London, SE5 8AF

[normalwisdom]

Thanks Nic have replied would be glad to help:yesyes:

[angiebaby]

Yep, have sent them an email, if i can help with anything for them then i am only too happy to do it. Perhaps we can help others.

[nomorepanic]

Please can you mention NMP when you mail them. Thanks.

[happyone]

Hi,
I sent them an e mail and mentioned NMP!

happyone

[jo61]

I've also emailed and mentioned the site.

[domino]

i,VE ALSO E,MAILED THEM AND MENTIONED THE SITE.

[Lindalou64]

Does This Incluse People In The States Also????
Linda Xx

[SANDYJANE]

I have also sent them an email and have put this site in the email ,

love sandyjane xx

[jo61]

I got my questionnaire this morning. Need to figure out how to frame the kids' questionnaire to my daughter!!:ohmy:

[domino]

Had mine to this morning, even though mine are now 21/24 she asked me to answer the questions as if they were toddlers, it is now in the post, found it quite easy to fill out.Wish my life was as easy!!!!!!

[SANDYJANE]

yes had mine this morning just got 2 wait for the kids 2 fill theirs out and then i can send mine back and yes it was easy 2 fill out

[NPS_Paul]

I filled in a questionaire and so did 3 of my children.

[bluesparkle]

i have only just replyed so will look forward to hearing from them.
i mentioned nmp

[honeybee3939]

Filled in the questionaire and received my £10 shopping voucher today, will look forward to hearing the out-come of the research.


Andrea
xxxxx

[jo61]

I sent mine off but haven't yet had the voucher. Any one else in the same boat?

[domino]

Yeh, got my voucher today, off to m/s to spend it.

[SANDYJANE]

jo61 , ive filled mine in but still waiting

love sandyjane

[panicdiva]

Filled mine in & posted it on 9th July, still waiting for voucher, but I'm sure the voucher will come soon.

[Paddington]

Just saw this post..shame there is a cut off time for the age of the children tho..mine are too old:ohmy: and it has run in our family for generations[panic/anxiety]so we may have had some valid points to make for the research.Love Paddie.xxxxxxx

[honeybee3939]

Hi

I received an email this morning from Emma about the out-come of the research which we took part in and found it very interesting.......






26 March 2008
Dear Sir or Madam,



Research at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma

As you will recall, you kindly completed some questionnaires for our research project exploring the relationship between anxiety in parents and anxiety in children. We have now completed data collection for this project, and we are writing to everyone who took part with a brief summary of our results.
Who took part in the research?
Fifty parents took part in our research. The people who took part in our research came from all over the UK. Some were recruited through online advertisements, and some through a specialist clinic for people affected by anxiety problems. All the people who took part in our study had experienced anxiety problems.
What did we find out?
Part of the study involved parents completing a questionnaire about how they felt their anxiety had affected them as parents. Most people taking part in the project told us that they believed their anxiety had had some impact on their parenting. For example, many parents told us they felt that their anxiety had sometimes made it difficult for them to enjoy the ‘fun’ parts of parenting, like going out with their children, or playing with them. Some parents told us that they felt their anxiety had also affected how they reacted to their child’s behaviour – for instance, making them irritable so it was difficult to tolerate normal childhood noise and mess. On the positive side, parents also told us that after treatment, or at times when their anxiety was not so bad, these things improved, so they were able to enjoy being a parent again.
Impact of anxiety upon children
Parents who we meet in our clinic often tell us that they are worried about their children developing an anxiety problem, and this was something we were interested in finding out about in our study. We wondered if the children in our study would, on average, have more anxiety than the average young person of their age. We asked parents or children to complete a brief questionnaire about this. Interestingly, when we looked at our results, we found that children’s anxiety was, on average, in the normal range. There were some individual children who did have raised anxiety on the questionnaire we used. However, our results suggested that most children were not experiencing significantly raised anxiety at the time they completed the questionnaire.
What does this mean?
Overall then, our results seem to show that our participants believed their anxiety did have an impact upon their parenting – but the children did not, on average, seem to be experiencing much more anxiety than would be expected for the average person of their age. There could be several explanations for this finding. It is possible that the questionnaire we used to measure children’s anxiety wasn’t sensitive enough – however, this is known to be quite a good test of children’s anxiety, so we don’t think this is the whole explanation. A more positive interpretation, and one we think is likely to be at least partly true, is simply that most of the children in our study weren’t anxious. This adds to the emerging body of evidence which shows that although anxiety can run in families, most children will not have anxiety problems, even where a parent is affected by anxiety. This is quite a positive finding from our study, which we hope some parents will find reassuring.
What happens now?
The findings from our research may be written up and published in a professional journal so we can tell other people working with children and families about what we found. Of course, anything we write about the project will be anonymised – our reports won’t contain any information which could identify the people who took part in the project. Research into anxiety problems affecting adults and children is ongoing here and elsewhere, so our research will help to contribute to our increasing understanding of this area.
Further information
If you are interested in reading more about anxiety in children, there is some excellent information online at:

www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/mentalhealthandgrowingup/13worriesandanxieties.aspx (http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/mentalhealthandgrowingup/13worriesandanxieties.aspx)

www.youngminds.org.uk/parents/im-concerned-about/anxiety
If you do have concerns that your child may be developing an anxiety problem, we would suggest that you discuss this with your GP who may be able to direct you to appropriate local resources. Sometimes schools are also able to offer advice, so it may also be worthwhile discussing your concerns with your child’s teacher.


We hope you have found this information interesting! Many thanks for your assistance with this research project.

Yours sincerely,





Dr Emma Girling
Research Clinical Psychologist
Institute of Psychiatry
Professor Derek Bolton
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Institute of Psychiatry

[Richie]

Thanx Honeybee for that, x x
it was i an interesting study and well worth you and others taking part in the questionaire:yesyes:
Do you know where the centre for trauma and anxiety is ?
Just wondered cause of looking for a therapist/specialist
Richie xxxx

[honeybee3939]

Hi Richie,

This is the address that came with the email, hope it helps......

Dr E Girling
PO Box 77
Henry Wellcome Building
Department of Psychology
De Crespigny Park
London
SE5 8AZ

:hugs:
Andrea
xxxxx