ARTICLES
A High-Risk Pilot Study of the Children of Adults with Social Phobia

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199611000-00020Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objective

Children of patients with social phobia were studied to estimate their rates of psychiatric disorder.

Method

Twenty-six social-phobic outpatients who had at least one child between the ages of 4 and 18 years participated in the study. Information was collected from parents on all 47 children and from the children between 12 and 18 years of age. Diagnoses in the children were made based on DSM-III-R and were done by a best-estimate method, using parent and child reports from a modified Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children, the Survey Diagnostic Instrument, the Current Self-Report Childhood Inhibition Scale, and the Alcohol Dependence Survey.

Results

Of the 47 children, 49% had at least one lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis. The most common diagnoses were overanxious disorder (30%), social phobia (23%), and separation anxiety disorder (19%). Sixty-five percent had more than one anxiety disorder diagnosis. Lifetime major depression was found in 8.5% of the children. Parents whose children met criteria for an anxiety disorder had a greater mean number of comorbid diagnoses than did the parents of unaffected children.

Conclusion

This pilot study suggests that children of social-phobic parents may have increased rates of psychiatric disorder. Further studies incorporating a control group are needed.

REFERENCES (43)

  • American Psychiatric Association

    Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV)

    (1994)
  • JC Anderson et al.

    DSM-III disorders in preadolescent children. Prevalence in a large sample from the general population

    Arch Gen Psychiatry

    (1987)
  • WR Beardslee et al.

    Initial findingson preventive intervention for families with parental affective disorders

    Am J Psychiatry

    (1992)
  • AT Beck et al.

    An inventory for measuring depression

    Arch Gen Psychiatry

    (1961)
  • Beidel DB, Turner SM, Morris TL (1994), The SPAI-C: a new self-report inventory for childhood social phobia. Presented...
  • MH Boyle et al.

    Ontario Child Health Study I. Methodology

    Arch Gen Psychiatry

    (1987)
  • KA Christie et al.

    Epidemiologic evidence for early onset of mental disorders and higher risk of drug abuse in young adults

    Am J Psychiatry

    (1988)
  • EY Deykin et al.

    Adolescent depression, alcohol, and drug abuse

    Am J Public Health

    (1986)
  • C Edelbrock et al.

    Age differences in the reliability of the psychiatric interview of the child

    Child Dev

    (1985)
  • J Endicott et al.

    Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria

    (1977)
  • HJ Eysenck et al.

    Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Manual

    (1975)
  • Cited by (93)

    • Associations of maternal and paternal mental health problems with offspring anxiety at age 20 years: Findings from a population-based prospective cohort study

      2021, Psychiatry Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      Our findings are consistent with the results from the existing study conducted in 1992 in the USA, which showed a 1.51-fold greater risk of anxiety disorders in children exposed to parental anxiety disorders compared with non-exposed children (Mufson et al., 1992). Another epidemiologic study conducted in Sweden also found an elevated risk of anxiety in the offspring of parents with anxiety disorders when compared with parents with no disorders (Mancini et al., 1996). Also, a prospective longitudinal study that evaluated the risk of anxiety disorders in the offspring of mothers with an anxiety disorder (panic disorder) showed a 2.23-fold greater risk of anxiety disorders in the offspring (aged 13-23 years) of mothers with anxiety disorders (Schneider et al., 2009).

    • Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Anxiety and Depressive Disorders in Offspring of Parents With Anxiety Disorders

      2019, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
      Citation Excerpt :

      For parent social anxiety disorder, offspring were not significantly more likely to have any of the other anxiety disorders than to have social anxiety disorder. These results are also surprising, given the significant associations found between particular parent anxiety disorders and the same particular anxiety disorders in their offspring in some previous studies.10,20,66 It is possible that we failed to find a significant risk for the same particular disorder in offspring and parents because we had to set a higher bar for conclusions to be drawn about this than in individual studies.

    • Social Phobia across the Lifespan

      2015, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition
    • Increased activity of frontal and limbic regions to emotional stimuli in children at-risk for anxiety disorders

      2015, Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging
      Citation Excerpt :

      The offspring of individuals with anxiety disorders are at a six- to nine-fold increased risk of developing anxiety disorders (Smoller et al., 2008). Compared with the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the general population, clinical studies of high-risk populations have found elevated rates of psychopathology among offspring of individuals with anxiety disorders (Capps et al., 1996; Mancini et al., 1996; Merikangas and Dierker, 1998; Beidel and Turner, 1997; Black et al., 2003; Merikangas, 2005). To date, no neuroimaging studies have been conducted with children at risk for developing anxiety disorders based on parental psychopathology.

    • Social Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: Biological, Developmental, and Social Considerations

      2014, Social Anxiety: Clinical, Developmental, and Social Perspectives
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text