Parental Anxiety and Child Psychopathology: The Role of the Family Environment

A sizeable proportion of adults suffer from an anxiety disorder and many of those adults are parents. Parental anxiety, as well as dysfunctional family environment, contributes to both internalizing and externalizing problems in children. Specifically, family control, conflict, and cohesion have been shown to predict child internalizing and externalizing symptoms to varying degrees. However, few studies have examined the association between all three components in the same study: parental psychopathology, family environment, and child outcomes. The current study tested the relationships among these variables in a sample of 189 children (66% male, 93% Caucasian, mean age = 10.34 years). Family conflict predicted child externalizing symptoms for both mothers and fathers, and mediated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child externalizing symptoms. Family cohesion predicted child externalizing problems based on maternal report and mediated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child externalizing symptoms. Furthermore, family cohesion moderated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child internalizing symptoms. These findings provide preliminary support for the role of the family environment in the relationship between parental anxiety and child psychopathology, and these environmental variables may be important targets of intervention in families with elevated parental anxiety.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Ryan, Sarah M.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Ollendick, Thomas H.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• White, Susan W.
• Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen

• parental anxiety
• family environment
• child internalizing symptoms
• child externalizing symptoms

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05042016-155125

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78097