Your Fear is My Fear: The Relationship Between Parental and Offspring Anxieties
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Your Fear is My Fear: The Relationship Between Parental and Offspring Anxieties Dirk Adolph1 · Jürgen Margraf1 · Silvia Schneider1 Accepted: 12 September 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Contrary to the well-documented link between parental and offspring clinical anxiety, little is known about the relationship between parental everyday-life anxieties (e.g., concerning family, finances, health) and offspring anxieties. To close this gap, we assessed the frequency of parental symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety disorders and everyday-life anxieties, as well as the frequency of offspring anxiety symptoms in a representative sample by self-report. Parents reported that 48.4% of the children were free of specific symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety disorders within the last 12 months, 39.2% showed low symptom load (1–3 symptoms) and 12.4% were moderately or severely strained (4–10 symptoms). Replicating previous studies, parental DSM-IV symptoms increased offspring risk for the same symptoms. In addition, parental everyday-life anxieties showed a positive relationship with offspring symptom severity. Demographic variables (female sex, low socioeconomic status and younger age) and parental anxiety markers explained 18% of variance in offspring symptom severity. The data are discussed in light of current models of familial transmission. Keywords Anxiety disorders · Familial transmission · Everyday-life anxiety · Population sample · Epidemiology
Introduction Anxiety disorders (AD) are among the earliest mental disorders occurring across the lifespan, showing a median ageof-onset of 11 years [1]. Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and the most common mental disorder in children and youths (6.5%) worldwide [2]. If not treated, childhood anxiety disorders can lead to other mental disorders, for example other anxiety disorders, substance abuse or depression [3, 4]. For example, a recent longitudinal study by Lieb et al. following 3021 youths in Germany found that adolescents diagnosed with specific phobia have an increased risk of developing panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder as well as major depression, eating disorders and chronic pain [5]. Moreover, anxiety disorders are highly persistent. In the same study, 41% of adolescents with specific phobia and 35% with social phobia at age 14 were diagnosed with * Dirk Adolph [email protected] 1
Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr-University Bochum, Massenbergstrasse 9‑13, 44847 Bochum, Germany
the same disorder 10 years later [6, 7]. To understand the development of an anxiety disorder, it is essential to take into account the various influencing factors. Within the current study, we aimed to address the role of different forms of parental anxiety in the occurrence of anxiety symptoms in children. Especially familial relationships and environment can greatly influence the development of an anxiety disorder. Such transgenerational tr
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