It has been a well-known fact for many years that anxious parents could pass anxiety disorders on to their kids. Although this truth is well known, nobody is prepared to say yes to this issue "is anxiety inherited". But now, a recent study by the scientists at Johns Hopkins Children's Centre, came up with the conclusion that a family-based program where parents and kids are being treated together, can aid in eliminating the symptoms and risks of anxiety among these children.
Each person can get anxious every once in awhile, however when the problem starts taking over one's life, the problem is then called anxiety disorder. It can be really stressful and cease people from living their lives fully. A lot of people with anxiety disorder might also have phobias and develop panic attacks. For the study purposes, the Hopkins investigators looked at 40 children 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 condition.
What other proof do we really need to answer the query "is anxiety inherited". Scientists randomly split the participants into two groups, with 20 of the children and their families getting involved in an 8-week cognitive behavioural treatment program, while the other 20 were put on a waiting list and did not get any treatment during the period of the study, but were offered therapy one year later. The CBT program, that consisted of one-hour-long weekly sessions, was focusing on an improvement of problem-solving abilities, instruction about anxiety disorder, and also assisted parents discover and change behaviours considered to contribute to anxiety in the kids.
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 figures obtained by the analysts, the kids of parents with an anxiety disorder are around seven times more prone to develop the disorder themselves, and up to 65 per cent of kids who live with an anxious parent meet the criteria for panic attacks.
The results of the experiment revealed that within a period of 12 months, 30 per cent of the kids that did not take part in the program, acquired an anxiety problem, compared to none 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 together with researchers 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 treatment program included overprotection, extreme criticism and excessive expression of fear and stress in front of the kids. The program targeted childhood risk factors such as avoiding anxiety-provoking situations and anxious thoughts. According to a recent content in The New England Journal of Medicine, it is deterrence and not treatment, of childhood anxiety, which is of a primary importance, because anxiety disorder influence one in every 5 children in the United States, but often remain unrecognized. If not treated on time, the problem can result in depression, substance abuse and poor academic performance throughout childhood years and way into adulthood.
Results of the research will be publicized in the June issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The study was funded by the US government's National Institute of Mental Health. Therefore "is anxiety inherited", yes. Can we change the pattern of behavior yes!