Case-control study of anxiety and depression on parents of children with anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorder is one of the prevalent disorders among children which could be the cause of many dysfunctions. As many researches have shown the family structure for anxiety disorders, this study is aimed at investigating the frequency of anxiety and depressive disorders in the parents of children with anxiety and comparing it with the control group.
Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the parents of 30 children which had been diagnosed as an anxiety case by child psychiatrist in Dr. Sheikh Hospital and 30 children without any psychiatric disorder with the age range of 3 to 12 were tested employing Beck Depression Inventory and Spielberger state trait anxiety inventory to evaluate the severity and frequency of depressive and anxiety disorders.
Results: The frequency of depression in patients’ mothers was significantly higher than the control group (P=0.002) whereas the results among fathers showed no meaningful difference. The frequency of trait anxiety was significantly higher (P=0.004) in patients’ mothers in comparison to the control group; however, this revealed no meaningful difference among fathers of the two groups. Although, the frequency of state anxiety in both fathers and mothers of the control group was a little higher than the patient’s parents, this showed no significant difference.
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the frequency of depressive and anxiety disorder in patient’s mothers was higher than the control group. Also, the findings indicated that the mentioned disorders in patients’ fathers did not show any significant difference.