Temperament, parental anxiety and their role in the development of child anxious psychopathology

Abstract

Much emphasis has been placed on parental contribution in the development and progression of psychopathology. Although it has been established that children of parents with anxiety disorders are at greater risk for developing anxious psychopathology themselves (e.g., Dadds & Roth, 2001; Rosenbaum, Biederman, Hirschfield, Bolduc, & Chaloff, 1991), the specific developmental path is not yet completely understood (Kendall & Ollendick, 2004). This cross-sectional study examined how child temperament (e.g., negative affectivity - NA) and parental anxiety symptom expression were related to the development of anxiety in a clinically referred sample of 570 children and adolescents. Structural equation modeling provides evidence that both child NA and parental anxiety were associated with child anxiety. Secondly, the relationship between parent and child anxiety symptoms was significant even when controlling for the influence of child NA. In other words, there was an association between child and parent anxiety that was not accounted for by the temperamental dimension of NA. Finally, in younger children (ages 7 to 11), parent anxiety's influence on child anxiety was weaker than in older children (ages 12 to 19), suggesting that, as children grow older, the influence of parental anxious behavior grows stronger.