Associations of Parent and Child Report of Anxiety Across Adolescence

• Christopher Costello, Psychology, University of Delaware
• Kathryn Jennings, Psychology, University of Delaware
• Maia Olsen, Psychology, University of Delaware

• Mary Dozier, Psychology, University of Delaware

Adolescence is noted as a period of social, psychological, cognitive, and emotional development. During this time, adolescents begin to expand their social circles and are less reliant upon their familial relationships for comfort and companionship than when they were younger. Thus, it is crucial to study the changes in relationship dynamics between parents and their children during adolescence. Other studies have examined the concurrent relationship between parent and child report of anxiety, but the study of their agreement longitudinally has been neglected. There have been findings that the accuracy of the report of anxiety becomes stronger by combining the parent and child report longitudinally throughout adolescence than child or parent report alone. However, little is known about parent-child concordance across adolescence. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the associations between parent and child reports of anxiety from child ages 13-14, both concurrently and longitudinally. For this measure, 121 adolescent participants as well as their primary caregivers completed the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) report questionnaire at both time points. Data were analyzed using a path analysis. Parent and child reports were associated concurrently at 13 years old but not 14 years. Parents reported significantly fewer anxiety symptoms (M=8.21, SD= 7.61) than the child (M=23.99, SD= 15.27) at 14 years old. Child report at age 13 significantly predicted child report at age 14, and significantly predicted the parent report at 14. However, the parent report at 13 did not significantly predict the child report at 14. In the future, it would be interesting to compare the self report analysis to physiological measures of anxiety and to examine the impact of parent depression upon their reports of anxiety in their children.