Abstract :
[en] Introduction: Anxiety complaints are relatively common among children and anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems in youths. Anxiety sensitivity and high trait anxiety have been postulated to affect vulnerability for anxiety disorders, but little is known regarding the link between these two personality traits and anxiety symptoms. The aims of this cross-sectional study were to assess the relationship between anxiety sensitivity, trait anxiety, and four dimensions of anxiety (separation anxiety, social anxiety, phobic fears and symptoms of panics) in children aged 8-12 years, and to examine whether these factors correlate with behavioural and emotional difficulties evaluated by their parents.
Method: 100 primary school children, aged 8-12 years completed the French version of the Children Anxiety Sensitivity Inventory (CASI), the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAI-C), and the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS). Their parents completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and scores for anxiety, depression, somatic complaints, attention problem, internalizing and externalizing behaviours were established. Correlations and multiple regression analyses were used to examine the association between anxiety sensitivity, trait anxiety, CBCL scores, and the four anxiety subscale score from the RCADS.
. Results: Exploratory analyses highlighted strong correlations between the anxiety sensitivity scores and the different subscales of the RCADS (all p-values<.001) : children reporting high anxiety sensitivitylevels are more prone to experience panic symptoms but also separation anxiety, social anxiety and phobic fears. Analyses also showed that anxiety sensitivity also predicts depressive symptoms on the RCADS and internalizing problems on the CBCL. Moreover, the CBCL anxiety score was only predicted by the CASI (p=.019), suggesting a strong relation between anxiety sensitivity and anxious behaviours. Interestingly, the STAI-C were not correlated to the CASI nor to the RCADS, suggesting that these inventories measure different constructs
. Discussion: These data indicate that high level of anxiety sensitivity is associated with more anxiety complaints and internalizing difficulties in children. We suggest anxiety sensitivity may mediate the development of anxiety disorders in children prone to attend physical sensations and discuss this hypothesis in the framework of current models of children anxiety disorders.
