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Parental Beliefs About Child Anxiety as a Mediator of Parent and Child Anxiety

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Abstract

Previous research has consistently supported a link between child and parental anxiety. Less well understood, however, are mediators of this association. Recent work has suggested the importance of parental cognitions in understanding the relationship between parental and child anxiety. The present investigation, employing a cross-sectional design, evaluates the potential mediational role of a specific parental cognitive variable, namely parental beliefs about the child’s anxiety, in the relationship between parental and child anxiety. Among a sample of clinic-referred youth (n = 103) with a variety of clinical presentations, parental beliefs about the harmfulness of the child’s anxiety significantly mediated the relationship between parent and child anxiety. This finding provides preliminary support for the role of parental beliefs about child anxiety in mediating the link between parent and child anxiety.

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Notes

  1. When fathers were excluded from the analyses, the findings reported here remained largely similar for mothers only, such that the relationships observed among the variables remained consistent with those reported, and support for partial mediation was obtained.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

    Sarah E. Francis

  2. Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Bruce F. Chorpita

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  1. Sarah E. Francis
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  2. Bruce F. Chorpita
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Correspondence to Sarah E. Francis.

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Francis, S.E., Chorpita, B.F. Parental Beliefs About Child Anxiety as a Mediator of Parent and Child Anxiety. Cogn Ther Res 35, 21–29 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9255-9

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