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.......
[FONT='Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'][/font]
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
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
Reply With Quote
