Early predictors of separation anxiety disorder: early stranger anxiety, parental pathology and prenatal factors

Developmental Epidemiology of Pediatric Anxiety Disorders

This review summarizes the developmental epidemiology of childhood and adolescent anxiety disorders. It discusses the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, sex differences, longitudinal course, and stability of anxiety disorders in addition to recurrence and remission. The trajectory of anxiety disorders-whether homotypic (ie, the same anxiety disorder persists over time) or heterotypic (ie, an anxiety disorder shifts to a different diagnosis over time) is discussed with regard to social, generalized, and separation anxiety disorders as well as specific phobia, and panic disorder. Finally, strategies for early recognition, prevention, and treatment of disorders are discussed.

Prenatal and perinatal risk factors for anxiety disorders among children and adolescents: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Prenatal and perinatal risk factors for anxiety disorders have rarely been studied, even though they are highly prevalent in children and adolescents. It is important to identify the common risk factors, so that targeted preventive care and early interventions can be provided.

METHODS

A systematic review of the PubMed and PsycInfo databases was conducted to 25 October 2019, according to the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines. The protocol was registered on the Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews and the quality assessment was carried out using the Joanna Briggs tools.

RESULTS

The review identified 31 studies from eight countries, including three register studies. Cohort sizes ranged from 69 to 89,404 and diagnoses cases ranged from 4 to 7867. Although various risk factors had been researched, only few of them had been repeatedly studied and the findings were highly inconsistent. The associations between the different risk factors and anxiety disorders seemed weak compared to many other psychiatric disorders, but preterm birth and maternal somatic illnesses may increase the risk for anxiety disorders in offspring.

LIMITATIONS

The studies varied considerably by study design, risk factors and anxiety disorders studied, sample sizes and follow up periods.

CONCLUSIONS

Prenatal and perinatal risk factors for anxiety disorders have been under-researched, compared to other psychiatric disorders. Our systematic review found weak links to prenatal events, but flagged up preterm birth and maternal somatic illnesses as possible avenues for future research.

Biobehavioral Markers of Attention Bias Modification in Temperamental Risk for Anxiety: A Randomized Control Trial

OBJECTIVE

Children with behavioral inhibition, a temperament characterized by biologically based hypervigilance to novelty and social withdrawal, are at high risk for developing anxiety. This study examined the effect of a novel attention training protocol, attention bias modification (ABM), on symptomatic, behavioral, and neural risk markers in children with behavioral inhibition.

METHOD

Nine- to 12-year-old typically developing children identified as having behavioral inhibition (N = 84) were assigned to a 4-session active ABM training (n = 43) or placebo protocol (n = 41) using a double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial approach. Anxiety symptoms (Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Fourth Edition), attention bias (AB; measured by a dot-probe task; AB = incongruent reaction time - congruent reaction time), and AB-related neural activation (measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging activation for the incongruent > congruent contrast in the dot-probe task) were assessed before and after the training sessions.

RESULTS

Results showed that active ABM (n = 40) significantly alleviated participants' symptoms of separation anxiety, but not social anxiety, compared with the placebo task (n = 40); ABM did not modify behavioral AB scores in the dot-probe task; and at the neural level, active ABM (n = 15) significantly decreased amygdala and insula activation and increased activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex compared with placebo (n = 19).

CONCLUSION

These findings provide important evidence for ABM as a potentially effective protective tool for temperamentally at-risk children in a developmental window before the emergence of clinical disorder and open to prevention and intervention. Clinical trial registration information-Attention and Social Behavior in Children (BRAINS); http://clinicaltrials.gov/; NCT02401282.

Separation Anxiety Disorder in School-Age Children: What Health Care Providers Should Know

Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is the most common childhood anxiety disorder, and it has many consequences, particularly for school-age children. These consequences include excessive worry, sleep problems, distress in social and academic settings, and a variety of physical symptoms that, left untreated, can cause social and academic decline. Pediatric providers routinely see children in the primary care office and have the unique opportunity to diagnose, treat, and manage children with SAD. Despite this, SAD continues to be underdiagnosed and undertreated because of a gap in the literature regarding evidence-based practice guidelines for pediatric providers. The purpose of this article is to discuss the diagnosis and management of SAD in school-age children and highlight the role of pediatric providers in managing separation anxiety.

Psychopathology among parents of children and adolescents with separation anxiety disorder

OBJECTIVE

To examine psychopathology among parents of children and adolescents with separation anxiety disorder (SAD).

METHOD

A case-control design was applied: parents of children and adolescents suffering from SAD (n = 30; age: 10.7 ± 1.8 a) were compared with parents of youth without any psychiatric disease (n = 30; age: 11.2 ± 1.8 a). The SCID-I, a structured clinical interview to assess psychopathology, was applied among the parents group.

RESULTS

Parents of children and adolescents suffering from SAD exhibited a significantly higher prevalence of psychopathology, mainly anxiety disorders and mood disorders, in comparison with the control group. Within anxiety disorders, mothers predominantly suffered from social phobia and specific phobia. Fathers most frequently suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia. Maternal anxiety disorder (current and lifetime) and maternal affective disorder (lifetime) proved to be significant predictors of SAD in youth.

CONCLUSIONS

The associations between parents' psychopathology and the development of SAD in their children are discussed in the light of clinical implications, both in terms of psychotherapeutic care as well as treatment outcome.