Latent Class Profiles of Anxiety Symptom Trajectories From Preschool Through School Age

Abstract

Anxiety typically arises early in childhood and decreases during school age. However, little is known about the earlier developmental course of anxiety in preschool, especially in at risk children, posing a clinically important problem. Given that anxiety in youth has a chronic course for some and also predicts later development of other mental health problems, it is important to identify factors early in development that may predict chronic anxiety symptoms. At-risk children (oversampled for depression) and caregivers completed 6 assessment waves beginning at preschool age (between 3–5.11 years of age) up through 6.5 years later. Growth mixture models revealed 4 distinct trajectories: 2 stable groups (high and moderate) and 2 decreasing groups (high and low). Important to note, the high stable anxiety group had greater baseline depression and social adversity/risk, higher average maternal depression over time, and poorer average social functioning over time compared to the high decreasing group. The high decreasing group also had greater externalizing/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder scores than the low decreasing group. Children with anxiety in early childhood who also experience high depression, social adversity/risk, maternal depression, and poor social functioning may be at risk for chronic symptoms over time.

Association Between Physical Fitness and Anxiety in Children: A Moderated Mediation Model of Agility and Resilience

“…Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health problems among children ( 1 , 2 ), with an estimated prevalence up to 20% ( 3 , 4 ). Anxiety in children has a negative impact on their school performance ( 5 ), social functioning ( 6 ), and quality of life ( 7 ). In addition, anxiety symptoms during childhood tend to be chronic and may lead to anxiety disorders and other serious psychopathological consequences that persist into later childhood and adulthood ( 1 , 8 , 9 ).…”

A novel social fear conditioning procedure alters social behavior and mTOR signaling in differentially housed adolescent rats

“…Vulnerability to fear‐related disorders such as post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) is enhanced in individuals with histories of early life adversity (Maercker et al., 2013). Early emotional neglect (Solomon & Mikulincer, 2007) and early social adversity are particularly potent risk factors for anxiety disorders including SAD (Kertz, Sylvester, Tillman, & Luby, 2017). Social fear can profoundly and persistently impair the quality of an individual's functioning across many domains, as social interactions are a vital component of almost every aspect of life (Herman, 1992; Karatzias et al, 2017).…”

Identifying Profiles of Anxiety in Late Childhood and Exploring Their Relationship with School-Based Distress

“…Therefore, external factors such as family should be examined in order to get a better understanding of the development of risk profiles of anxiety. In addition, considering that anxious symptoms arise during preschool time and that scientific literature on the developmental course of anxiety from this educational stage is limited [73], future works should extend the examination of profiles of these three forms of anxiety (i.e., AA, SA, and GA) to preschool and early grade school years. In the third place, this research is pioneer on assessing the relationship of forms of anxiety with sources and manifestations of distress by using a person-centered approach, and a community sample was used for that purpose.…”