Introduction
The nature of the environment in which people live is characterized with extremely high levels of uncertainties about future events. While people often anticipate good things to happen in their lives, there is always an almost established fact that bad things are also most likely to be experienced.
These expectations form the basis of anxiety in people that defines a sense of worry or an uneasy feeling due to unascertained phenomenon that are always expected to happen. Though some impacts of anxiety are normal, there are some that are realized to have adverse effects and end up being termed as disorders.
This paper seeks to discuss anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. The paper will look into anxiety disorder with respect to its causes, prevalence, classification, progression and treatment among other aspects.
Anxiety Disorders
Impacts of anxiety with respect to either good or bad occurrences are under normal circumstances understood as normal reactions to whatever is expected to happen. An anticipation of a negative happening is however in most cases realized to have an induced level of fear or even stress to an individual. When a negative expectation results in an extreme negative reaction in terms of fear and worry then it is classified as an anxiety disorder.
The definition of anxiety disorder thus distinguishes it from normal anticipations that may not enlist any form of worry to an individual.
Instances such as anxieties following anticipation for an appointment are for example considered to be normal in adults while a child who is being taken away from home to attend school may be extremely scared at the fact that he or she is going to be separated from the mother or whoever was closely taking care of him or her.
The disorders are further identified when the individuals get extremely fearful while there is actually no solid reason to develop such fears. A child who is being taken to school for example develops fears while he or she is going to be securely brought back home.
Instances of young children who are actually in perfect health conditions developing extreme fears of suffering from diseases such as cardio vascular complications or even cancer when they absolutely have no symptoms or reasons for such fears also forms basis for anxiety disorders among children and adolescents.
Though anxiety disorders were not anciently considered by professionals, attention has currently been devoted to it to realize that a significant numbers of the young generation are victims. It was, for instance, realized by the year 2008 that teenagers are almost constantly under anxiety disorder complications with either subsequent or even simultaneous cases of disorders by an individual (Chandler, n.d.).
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
Factors that cause anxiety disorders have not individually been identified with specific disorders that are realized. These factors have at the same time not been agreed upon by experts as to their exact impacts on anxiety disorders. Causes of the disorders are however postulated to range from “biological, psychological to social factors” (Bernstain, 2010, p. 476).
The factors may individually or in combination result in any particular or groups of anxiety disorders. Biological factors as identified with anxiety disorders are associated with the genetic engineering that explains the transfer of traits from parents to their offspring along blood relations.
This means that children and adolescents are more likely to suffer from the disorders if their parents were associated with anxiety disorder complications.
The opinion over causes of anxiety disorders has been supported by research that has linked anxiety disorder to genetic relations. It has for instance been established that twins developed similar responses to anxieties. Attitudes that are realized among such twins to illustrate connectivity in their responses have been used to explain their anticipations and fears as well.
It is thus crowned that this connectivity is derived from genetic relation of twins that are derived from their parents. Though research has not been successfully completed to identify the specific genes that are related to anxiety disorders, it has been agreed that the association between anxiety disorders and genetic properties are significant.
Psychological factors such as stress and environmental conditions also directly contributes to anxiety disorders (Bernstain, 2010)
Bourne Edmund (2005) on the other hand explains causes of anxiety disorders in form of a wider point of view. One of his classifications of causes of anxiety disorders is a set of long term factors that accumulate on an individual child or adolescent to lead to anxiety disorder. He in addition to the genetic factors illustrated the conditions that surround a child’s life as factors to anxiety disorders.
The communication that children receive from their parents or that which they witness around them is identified to be a cause of the disorder. Negative opinions that children grasps from their environment as they grow up for instance induces fear among them over uncertainties that life has for them.
The manner in which children are raised such as having a perfectionist parent who has extreme standards for children also induces insecurity into fears. Treatment and social environment that children are offered that may induce stress together with a destabilized emotional condition of a child is also a long term factor into anxiety disorder.
Apart from the hereditary elements into anxiety disorders, other biological causes include “panic attacks, physiology of panic, generalized anxiety among others” (Bourne, 2005, p. 32).
There are also a number of occurrences that are realized to cause anxiety disorders on a short term basis.
Realized attacks on an individual that can include “significant personal loss, significant life change and stimulants and recreational drugs” (Bourne, 2005, p. 32) together with “conditioning and origin of phobia and trauma, simple phobias and post traumatic stress disorders” (Bourne, 2005, p. 32) are also realized to be causes of anxiety disorders.
Anxiety disorders are also caused by developments in an individual’s life that could be in the form of mental capacity or behavior (Camh, 2009).
Prevalence of Anxiety Disorder
There are varying reports over data with respect to the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the society in general. According to Sadock et al. (2007), prevalence rate of anxiety disorders range from a minimum rate of about eight percent to a maximum value of almost thirty percent. The wide range of values was however narrowed down to reflect a prevalence of about ten percent among young individuals.
According to a research as discussed by the authors, there existed a variety of types of anxiety disorders with different prevalence rate that contributed to the overall realized rates. Generally realized anxiety disorder was for example realized to be the most common with a prevalence rate of almost seven percent followed by disorder due to separation.
Disorder due to response to environment was realized to follow in level of significance. A consideration of anxiety disorder due to separation was realized to be more serious in younger children and reduced with age to have adolescents realize less of separation based anxiety disorder.
At the same time, the anxiety disorder due to separation was realized to be evenly distributed among boys and girls giving the sense of insecurity some level of independence with respect to sex, at least at the younger age. This particular type of disorder was at the same time realized to be more significantly realized within the age gap of seven to eight years of a child (Sadock et al., 2007).
Dziegielewski (2009) on the other hand presented the figures over prevalence of anxiety disorder to be about ten percent among children and adolescents. This was however far below the generally realized prevalence level which was reported to be almost twenty five percent.
The level of anxiety disorder was attributed to factors such as difficulties that the children and the adolescent encounter in their academic environment as well as even their social environment in general. This prevalence level according to the author is expected to rise in future due to developments that have improved the capacity to identify and diagnose anxiety disorders (Dziegielewski, 2009).
The presentation of anxiety disorders in children to be just one of the factors to the disorders among adults as the children grow is an illustration of higher prevalence rate of the disorders in adults as compared to children and the adolescents. More factors such as “medical conditions, medication use and functional status” are reported to contribute to the complications among adults (Dziegielewski, 2009, p. 302).
History of prevalence of the complications in earlier periods also revealed averagely the same rate of prevalence. A consideration of the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the 1980s for instance revealed a rate of about ten percent which is consistent with the currently reported data.
Whereas developments have been made with respect to diagnosis of anxiety disorders, meaning that more disorders are noticed contrary to previous periods, the constancy in the realized cases imply that the actual prevalence of the disorders are decreasing.
This is because the data which were previously reported had a lot of omissions that are currently taken care of. If this factor is taken into consideration and adjustments made to the previous data, then it would be realized that the earlier durations would have realized higher prevalence rates (Essau & Petermann, 2002).
Differentiating Criteria
Differentiating criteria is an approach to diagnosing disorders on the basis of observations that are made on an individual. The criteria use the change in conduct of the patient to identify the existence of disorder complications.
According to the concept, an individual suffering from anxiety disorder will suffer from change or difference in behavior to exhibit factors such as “negativistic, oppositional and defiant behavior” (House, 2002, p. 46) that will be contrary to normally observed behavior.
Progression of the Disorder
There are a variety of approaches to the view of progression of anxiety disorders. One of the approaches as illustrated by Connolly et al. (2006) is the stage in life in which a child or an adolescent can suffer from anxiety disorder. This can thus be viewed as the progression of anxiety disorders in and individual’s life as he or she grows up.
The progression is at the same time realized in an individual’s entire life as anxiety disorders develop to even be realized by individuals in their old age. The initial experience of young babies to factors such as darkness or even sudden touch that can include falls are examples of fears and worries that can be reported at early stages of life.
The infants with time develop fondness to people around them and at the same time exhibit fears over people whom they do not recognize. This is normally realized in terms of the infants rejecting strangers and even crying when the strangers get too close to them. As the kids grow older even to the preschool age, they are realized to develop other forms of fears.
At this stage, the children are more worried over imaginative things and even fears of separation from individuals with whom they have close ties such as their mothers, fathers and even siblings. Further advancement in age of the children at the same time realizes new fears and worries.
In the early ages in school, children are realized to have fears that relates to features such as “illness, injuries and natural disasters” (Connolly et al., 2006, p. 1). These fears eventually develop to other levels as the children become concerned over their capacities in academic work.
There are normally developed fears about how other people perceive their performance. Parties such as their peers knowing their level of performance becomes a bother and in most cases lead to concealment of their work. They also at this stage of life develop fears over any form of threat to their health (Connolly et al., 2006). These changes are at the same time characterized with disorders (Connolly et al., 2006).
Physical Considerations
The nature of anxiety disorders that leads tom variations in behavior of individuals such as a person being rebellious or just changing to abnormal practices contrary to that which is normally expected by the society has a variety of impacts. One of the direct impacts of such withdrawals by individuals is the self confinement and involvement in substance abuse.
As a result, the victims build an association in which they can derive consolation from substance abuse. It is from this avenue that violence is realized with respect to anxiety disorders. Though the level of rebellion that is directly induced by disorders my be translated into physical reactions such physical fights due to emotional changes and stress, involvement in drugs fuels violence among this category of individuals.
Withdrawal into these groups exposes an individual to habits such as hostility that leads to violent physical encounters. Under extreme cases, these issues culminate to “assaults and murder in some cases” (Oltmanns et al., 2008, p. 160). Anxiety disorders are thus associated with negative physical impacts (Oltmanns et al., 2008, p. 160).
Implication for Assessment
Assessment of aspects of lives of individual children or even adolescents is identified to be a continuous process that is realized through out their lives. Conducted by a variety of parties from the moment that a child is conceived and in all his all her life time, assessment is realized from parties such as parents and family members in domestic set ups.
At the same time, assessments in academic institutions as well as among age mates and those encountered during interactions with medical professionals offer an individuals status on evaluation. Assessment thus has the implication of revealing any possible disorder (Mash & Barkley, 2007).
Treatment Consideration
The wide percentage of anxiety problems as realized among children and the effects tat such complications have on the individuals as they grow up lays down the mandatory need to offer treatments to victims of anxiety disorders. This is because if the complications go unattended to, the implications means a lost efficiency or even productivity of the individual victim due to the associated mental effects of the complications.
A great deal of consideration is thus normally called for to offer medical attention to the victims. According to Mash Eric, the process of administering treatment to a patient who is suffering from anxiety disorders is supposed to a comprehensive one that has a diverse consideration of elements. The first step in administering treatment is the identification of the need for such treatment.
This is because there are normally some fears and worries that are not necessarily anxiety disorders. This will form the basis of whether or not a person should be subjected to treatment. In the consideration of whether or not treatment should be administered, it should also be predetermined as to whether the treatment will be effective in solving the problem as realized by the individual.
Since the problem is more psychological than medical, consideration of the approach to be applied as well as the people to be involved in the treatment process must also be seriously made. The atmosphere in which treatment is to be offered with considerations of how well the patient will receive the treatment is also a factor to be considered.
Timing of treatment and monitoring to check its effectiveness as well as any need for adjustment in the process also forms important basis for treatment of anxiety disorders. The consideration of the approach to treatment is then followed by development of an appropriate model to be applied.
One of the identified models for treatment as explained by Mash involves identification of the problem realized by the patient which is then followed by making appropriate research into the problem. An outline is then made for the treatment which makes provisions for the main activities to be involved in the treatment process.
This is then followed by administering of treatment and further monitoring steps to ensure that the treatment is successfully applied. One of the particular treatment approaches that have been realized and implemented over time is the use “cognitive behavior” approach (Mash, 2006, p. 9).
This approach employs the forces of relation as realized between the individual patient and his or her relatives has been applied together with psychological treatments to help victims out of anxiety disorders (Mash, 2006).
According to Connolly, Suarez and Sylvester (2011), the treatment of anxiety disorders should begin with a plan which should identify the level of seriousness of the complication as well as the impacts that are being realized by the victim.
Possible treatments that can then be applied include “psychotherapeutic treatments, cognitive behavioral therapy, parent- child and family interventions and pharmacologic treatment” among others (Connolly, Suarez & Sylvester, 2011, pp. 102 & 103). There is thus a variety of treatments for anxiety disorders.
References
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