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Preventing Childhood Anxiety Disorders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2014

Susan H. Spence and
Mark R. Dadds
Susan H. Spence*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Mark R. Dadds
Affiliation:
Griffith University
*
Department of Psychology, University of Queensland QLD 4072, Australia
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Abstract

Although much has been written about the need for prevention of anxiety disorders in children, there has been a marked absence of empirical research to evaluate the effectiveness of such programs. This paper suggests that there is now sufficient evidence to identify risk and protective factors for the development of childhood anxiety disorders. Early childhood temperament, negative life events, and children's coping styles are suggested to play a significant role. Acting in association with these variables are parental behaviours that serve to model, prompt, and reinforce anxious behaviour and emphasise the threatening nature of events. Our knowledge of these causal variables enables us to identify children at risk for the development of anxiety problems and highlights variables that should be targets of change in prevention programs. Indicated prevention is designed to disrupt the trajectory towards the development of clinical levels of psychological disorder. This paper describes an “indicated” preventive program for children identified as being at risk for the development of anxiety disorders given evidence of mild anxious symptomatology.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 13 , Issue 4: Special Issue — Part II: Internalising Disorders of Children and Adolescents , December 1996, pp. 241 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1996

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References

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