|
|
Anxiety In The Family 'Is Anxiety Inherited'
It has been a known fact for several years that restless parents can pass anxiety disorders on to their children. Although this truth is well known, no one is prepared to say yes to this issue "is stress inherited". But now, a new study by the scientists at Johns Hopkins Children's Centre, put together the conclusion that a family-based program where parents and kids are treated together, may aid in eliminating the symptoms and risks of anxiety among these children.
Each one could possibly get anxious from time to time, but when the problem starts taking over one's life, the condition is then called anxiety disorder. It could be extremely nerve-racking and cease people from living their lives fully. Some individuals with anxiety disorder might also have fears and develop anxiety attacks. For the study purposes, the Hopkins investigators looked at 40 kids from the ages between 7 and 12 years. The kids were not clinically determined to have anxiety disorder themselves but they all had at least one parent who was diagnosed with the problem.
What other evidence do we really need to answer the question "is anxiety inherited". Investigators randomly divided the participants into two categories, with 20 of the kids and their families taking part in an 8-week intellectual behavioural treatment program, while the other 20 were put on a waiting list and did not get any treatment during the period of the research, but were offered treatment one year later. The CBT program, which consisted of one-hour-long weekly sessions, was working on an improvement of problem-solving abilities, training about panic attacks, and also assisted parents discover and change behaviours considered to contribute to anxiety in the children.
The chief researcher of the study, Dr. Golda Ginsburg, PH.D., a child psychologist at Hopkins Children's Center and an associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said that according to the statistics gathered by the experts, the children of parents with an anxiety disorder are around seven times more prone to develop the disorder themselves, and up to 65 per cent of children who live with an anxious parent meet the criteria for panic attacks.
The actual outcome of the experiment revealed that within a period of 12 months, 30 per cent of the children that did not engage in the program, acquired an anxiety disorder, compared to 0 percent of the kids who were enrolled in the family based therapy. A 40 per cent decrease in anxiety symptoms throughout the year after the therapy program were independently reported by parents along with investigators who analyzed the behaviour of the kids and their parents. There was no drop of anxiety symptoms observed among children on the waiting list.
The parental behaviors personalized with therapy program included overprotection, excessive criticism and excessive expression of fear and stress in front of the children. The program focused on childhood risk factors such as avoiding anxiety-provoking situations and anxious thoughts. According to a recent editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, it is deterrence but not treatment, of childhood anxiety, which is of a primary importance, as anxiety disorder affect one in every 5 children in the United States, but usually remain unacknowledged. If not treated in time, the dilemma can result in depression, drug abuse and poor academic performance all through childhood years and way into adulthood.
Results of the study will be posted in the June issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The research was financed by the US government's National Institute of Mental Health. Therefore "is anxiety inherited", yes. Can we change the pattern of behavior yes!
|
More Articles
Blogroll
|
