Zeitschrift für traumatische Belastungsstörungen und Behandlung

The Daily Lives of Anxious and Non-Anxious Adolescents: A Survey for Parents of 13-15 Year Old Adolescents

Vicky Downey*

The aim of this paper is to report the findings on the daily lives of anxious and non-anxious adolescents from the perspective of parents, to establish any differences or similarities. Although research around anxiety disorders amongst adolescents is broad, little research has captured parental reports of anxiety disorders amongst adolescents. Hence, this gap is addressed. The data was collected using a 21-item questionnaire that was distributed online to parents of 13-15-year-old children. Data came from 120 parents who completed the survey. 95% were Mothers and 4.2% were Fathers. 45.8% of adolescents referred to in this study had a diagnosed anxiety disorder while 53.3% of children mentioned in the survey were not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 66.7% were female and 33.3% were male. An ordinal logistic regression test showed that having a diagnosed anxiety disorder or not influenced everyday life quality (P=.000). There was a negative correlation between the quality of the parent-child relationship and their views on the importance of discussing their child’s personal feelings. Adolescents with an anxiety disorder had a higher rate of school absenteeism over the course of a month than non-anxious adolescents. Anxious adolescents have a lower daily life quality that non-anxious adolescents.