Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 9/2012

01-09-2012 | Original Contribution

One-year stability, change and incidence in anxiety symptoms among early adolescents in the general population

Authors: Einar Leikanger, Bo Larsson

Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry | Issue 9/2012

Login to get access

Abstract

To examine prospectively the stability, changes, and incidence in DSM-IV-related anxiety symptom clusters in a community sample of adolescents. On two occasions, 1 year apart, 946 Norwegian adolescents aged 13–16 years completed the SCARED, a 41-item multidimensional anxiety self-report scale that measures the levels of five principal DSM-IV-related anxiety symptom clusters. Seventy-three percent of the adolescents participated in the study at baseline, and only 7 % were lost to follow-up. Both sexes in all age cohorts, except girls aged 14–15 years, showed the same 1-year developmental pattern of stable scores, or small reductions in the total anxiety score, for all DSM-IV-related anxiety symptom clusters. Adolescents defined as “high anxiety scorers” showed a girl:boy ratio of 4:1. Whereas approximately half these students remained high scorers at the 1-year follow-up, the same proportion returned to normal anxiety levels. The 1-year incidence of high-level anxiety was 8.2 % for the whole sample, 12.6 % for the girls and 3.4 % for the boys. These results underscore the need for improved identification of adolescents in the general population with stable high anxiety levels, as opposed to those with transient high anxiety. The normative findings of this study also provide reference data with which to evaluate individual changes in clinical practice and the results of efficacy trials, including 1-year follow-up evaluations.
Footnotes
1
Abbreviations: ANX = total anxiety score, GAD = generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, PD = panic disorder symptoms, SAD = separation anxiety symptoms, SA = social phobia symptoms, SP = school phobia symptoms.
 
2
In Norway, these schools (“Ungdomsskole”) are compulsory for all pupils aged approximately 13–16 years of age. Here, we use the term “junior high school”.
 
3
Wren et al. [23] found four factors, excluding the school phobia factor. Muris et al. [24] reported the same four factors in an African sample, also excluding the SP factor.
 
4
The age range included all pupils with the actual age at T1 or T2, respectively. For example, the 13-year age group included all pupils aged between 13 years and 13 years, 11 months, and 31 days.
 
Literature
1.
Gullone E (2000) The development of normal fear: a century of research. Clin Psychol Rev 20(4):429–451PubMedCrossRef
2.
Gullone E, King NJ, Ollendick TH (2001) Self-reported anxiety in children and adolescents: a three-year follow-up study. J Genet Psychol 162(1):5–19PubMedCrossRef
3.
Sylvers P, Lilienfeld SO, LaPrairie JL (2011) Differences between trait fear and trait anxiety: implications for psychopathology. Clin Psychol Rev 31(1):122–137PubMedCrossRef
4.
(2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn. American Psychiatric Publishing, Washington, DC
5.
(1992) ICD-10 Classifications of Mental and Behavioural Disorder: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines. World Health Organization, Geneva
6.
Muris P, Merckelbach H, Mayer B, Prins E (2000) How serious are common childhood fears? Behav Res Therapy 38(3):217–228CrossRef
7.
8.
Westenberg P, Drewes MJ, Goedhart AW, Siebelink BM, Treffers PD (2004) A developmental analysis of self-reported fears in late childhood through mid-adolescence: social-evaluative fears on the rise? J Child Psychol Psychiatry 45(3):481–495. doi:10.​1111/​j.​1469-7610.​2004.​00239.​x
9.
Ollendick TH, King NJ, Frary RB (1989) Fears in children and adolescents: reliability and generalizability across gender, age and nationality. Behav Res Therapy 27(1):19–26CrossRef
10.
Valiente RM, Sandin B, Chorot P, Tabar A (2003) Age differences in prevalence and intensity of fears in a sample of children and adolescents: data based on the FSSC-R. Psicothema 15(3):414–419
11.
12.
Costello E, Egger H, Angold A (2005) The developmental epidemiology of anxiety disorders: phenomenology, prevalence, and comorbidity. Child Adolesc Psychiatric Clin North Am 14(4):631–648CrossRef
13.
Reynolds CR, Richmond BO (1978) What I think and feel: a revised measure of children’s manifest anxiety. J Abnorm Child Psychol 6(2):271–280PubMedCrossRef
14.
Leen-Feldner EW et al. (2008) The role of puberty in adolescent anxiety: theory and evidence. In: Zwolensky MJ, Smits JA (eds) Anxiety in health behaviours and physical illness. Springer, New York
15.
Hale W, Raaijmakers Q, Muris P, van Hoof A, Meeus W (2008) Developmental trajectories of adolescent anxiety disorder symptoms: a 5-year prospective community study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 47(5):556–564PubMedCrossRef
16.
Birmaher B, Khetarpal S, Brent D, Cully M, Balach L, Kaufman J, Neer SM (1997) The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): scale construction and psychometric characteristics. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 36(4):545–553PubMedCrossRef
17.
Myers K, Winters NC (2002) Ten-year review of rating scales. II: Scales for internalizing disorders. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 41(6):634–659PubMedCrossRef
18.
Boyd RC, Ginsburg GS, Lambert SF, Cooley MR, Campbell KDM (2003) Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): psychometric properties in an African-American parochial high school sample. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 42(10):1188–1196PubMedCrossRef
19.
Birmaher B, Brent D, Chiappetta L, Bridge J, Monga S, Baugher M (1999) Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): a replication study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 38(10):1230–1236PubMedCrossRef
20.
Muris P, Merchelbach H, Schmidt H, Mayer B (1999) The revised version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-R): factor structure in normal children. Pers Individ Diff 26(1):99–112CrossRef
21.
Muris P, Merckelbach H, Mayer B, van Brakel A, Thissen S, Moulaert V, Gadet B (1998) The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) and traditional childhood anxiety measures. J Behav Therapy Exp Psychiatry 29:327–339CrossRef
22.
Hale WW III, Raaijmakers Q, Muris P, Meeus WIM (2005) Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in the general adolescent population. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 44(3):283–290. doi:10.​1097/​00004583-200503000-00013 PubMedCrossRef
23.
Wren FJ, Berg EA, Heiden LA, Kinnamon CJ, Ohlson LA, Bridge JA, Birmaher B, Bernal MP (2007) Childhood anxiety in a diverse primary care population: parent–child reports, ethnicity and SCARED factor structure. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 46(3):332–340PubMedCrossRef
24.
Muris P, Schmidt H, Engelbrecht P, Perold M (2002) DSM-IV-defined anxiety disorder symptoms in South African children. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 41(11):1360–1368PubMedCrossRef
25.
Crocetti E, Hale WW III, Fermani A, Raaijmakers Q, Meeus W (2009) Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in the general Italian adolescent population: a validation and a comparison between Italy and the Netherlands. J Anxiety Disord 23(6):824–829. doi:10.​1016/​j.​janxdis.​2009.​04.​003 PubMedCrossRef
26.
Little RJA, Rubin DB (2002) Statistical analysis with missing data. Wiley’s Series in Probability and Statistics, 2nd edn. Wiley, NY
27.
Cohen J (1988) Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences, 2nd edn. Erlbaum, Hillsdale
28.
29.
Costello EJ, Foley DL, Angold A (2006) 10-year research update review: the epidemiology of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders: II. developmental epidemiology. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 45(1):8–25PubMedCrossRef
30.
Lewinsohn PM, Gotlib IH, Lewinsohn M, Seeley JR, Allen NB (1998) Gender differences in anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms in adolescents. J Abnorm Psychol 107(1):109–117PubMedCrossRef
31.
Warner LA, Bott C (2010) Epidemiology of mental disorders in girls and female adolescents. In: Levin BL, Becher MA (eds) A public health perspective of women’s mental health. Springer Science + Business Media, New York
32.
Kessler RC, Angermeyer M, Anthony JC, De Graaf R, Demyttenaere K, Gasquet I, Girolame GD, Gluzman S, Gureje O, Haro JM, Kawakami N, Karam A, Levinson D, Mora MEM, Browne MAO, Posada-Villa J, Stein DJ, Tsang CHA, Aguilar-Gaxiola S, Alonso J, Lee S, Heeringa S, Pennell B-E, Berglund P, Gruber MJ, Petukhova M, Chatterji S, Üstün TB (2007) Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of mental disorders in the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative. World Psychiatry 6(3):168–176PubMed
33.
34.
35.
Angold A, Costello E, Erkanli A, Worthman C (1999) Pubertal changes in hormone levels and depression in girls. Psychol Med 29(5):1045–1053CrossRef
36.
Yonkers KA, Gurguis G (eds) (1995) Gender differences in the prevalence and expression of anxiety disorders: gender and psychopathology. American Psychiatric Press, Washington, DC
37.
March JS, Stallings P (1995) Assessment. In: March JS (ed) Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Guilford Press, New York, pp 125–147
38.
39.
Butler AC, Chapman JE, Forman EM, Beck AT (2006) The empirical status of cognitive–behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Clin Psychol Rev 26(1):17–31PubMedCrossRef
Metadata
Title
One-year stability, change and incidence in anxiety symptoms among early adolescents in the general population
Authors
Einar Leikanger
Bo Larsson
Publication date
01-09-2012
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry / Issue 9/2012
Print ISSN: 1018-8827
Electronic ISSN: 1435-165X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-012-0284-7

Other articles of this Issue 9/2012

European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 9/2012 Go to the issue

Letter to the Editor

Unfavourable outcome of deep brain stimulation in a Tourette patient with severe comorbidity

Review

Amfetamine and methylphenidate medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: complementary treatment options

ESCAP Communications

Communications of the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Editorial

Someone is not listening to the facts: there is little psychiatry outside child and adolescent psychiatry

Original Contribution

Adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury: the effects of personality traits, family relationships and maltreatment on the presence and severity of behaviours

Letter to the Editor

Drug-induced acute psychosis in an adolescent first-time user of 4-HO-MET