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A Genetically Informed Study of the Covariation Between Childhood Anxiety Dimensions and Social Competence

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Abstract

We investigated the nature of latent shared etiological elements in 398 Italian twin pairs aged 8–17, explaining covariation between high levels of anxiety symptoms and low social competence. We found significant negative correlations between Child Behaviour Checklist/6–18 Social Competence Scale and three (Panic Anxiety, Separation Anxiety, Social Anxiety) out of five Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders anxiety subscales. Results from causal analysis seem to exclude the hypothesis that co-occurrence between Anxiety Symptoms and Social Competence could be due to a direct phenotypic effect of one trait upon the other. Multivariate analysis suggested that both genetic and shared environmental components contribute to the phenotypic correlation between Social Competence and Anxiety Subscales, whereas unique environmental factors have a negligible influence. This means that both common genetic and shared environmental causal factors contribute simultaneously to increase risk of having low Social Competence and high Anxiety scores. In particular, covariation with Social Competence seems to be influenced by both genetic and shared environmental causal components in Separation Anxiety and Social Anxiety, whereas environmental factors have an irrelevant influence for covariation with Panic/Somatic Anxiety Subscale. Our results support the adoption of a broader view of the relationships between psychopathology and diminished social competences in childhood for both clinicians and educators.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Dr. Chiara Brombin (CUSSB) for her help in power analyses. We also thank all children and parents who took part in this study. The permission of Thomas Achenbach to employ the CBCL 6–18 for research purposes is also gratefully acknowledged. Supported in part by the Italian Ministry of Health (Project no. OAB/F/2000 Grant BO16.1 awarded to Marco Battaglia; Project: “Finalizzata 2007: Mental Health in Childhood and Adolescence” grant awarded to Marco Battaglia) and the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Project PRIN 06/006061953 awarded to Marco Battaglia). The first author of this paper was in the San Raffaele University Developmental Psychopathology PhD program, supported in part by the CARIPLO foundation ‘Human Talents’ grant for Academic Centres of Excellence in Post-Graduate Teaching (Marco Battaglia—recipient).

Author Contributions

S.S.: designed the study, analysed the data and wrote the paper. R.B., V.F.: analysed part of the data and wrote part of the results. M.B., A.O.: designed the study and collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Ripa di Porta Ticinese 77, Milan, Italy

    Simona Scaini

  2. Developmental Psychopathology Unit, ‘Vita-Salute’ San Raffaele University, via Stamira D’Ancona 20, Milan, Italy

    Simona Scaini & Anna Ogliari

  3. The Department of Clinical Neurosciences, San Raffaele Hospital, via Stamira D’Ancona 20, Milan, Italy

    Raffaella Belotti, Valeria Fiocco & Anna Ogliari

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Marco Battaglia

  5. The Division of Child and Youth Psychiatry at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, Canada

    Marco Battaglia

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  1. Simona Scaini
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  2. Raffaella Belotti
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  3. Valeria Fiocco
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  4. Marco Battaglia
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  5. Anna Ogliari
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Correspondence to Simona Scaini.

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The ethical committee of each participating institution accepted the procedures and the parents of all participants signed informed consent.

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Scaini, S., Belotti, R., Fiocco, V. et al. A Genetically Informed Study of the Covariation Between Childhood Anxiety Dimensions and Social Competence. J Child Fam Stud 26, 2519–2528 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0760-2

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