Abstract
Adults with anxiety have demonstrated elevated risk perception, but the relation between risk perception and anxiety in youth is unclear. The lack of developmentally tailored risk perception measures may be hindering the accurate detection of the relation between these constructs in youth. We sought to better characterize the relation between two components of risk perception - probability and cost estimates - to anxiety in youth, using a novel measure of youth risk perception (P-RISK; Perception of Risk Interactive Scale for Kids). In a community sample of 60 youth (ages 6 to12), the P-RISK, as a measure of risk perception, was feasible, easy to administer, and able to convey concepts of probability to youth. Anxiety symptomatology in youth was uniquely related to their perception of the likelihood of anxiety-provoking events. There is preliminary, though mixed, evidence of correlations between youth anxiety level and their cost estimates of anxiety-provoking events. There was also preliminary evidence that the relations between anxiety and youth estimates of probability and cost varied by developmental level. These findings highlight the potential clinical utility of using a developmentally tailored risk perception measure to enhance the assessment and treatment of youth anxiety.
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Fenley, A.R., Langer, D.A., Blake, P.R., & Pincus, D.B., The relation between risk perception and anxiety in youth: An investigation using a novel developmentally tailored measure, Open Science Framework (OSF), DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/W4GNQ.
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Acknowledgements
The study was conducted in the Living Laboratory at the Museum of Science, Boston. We appreciate the museum staff for their support, and we thank the parents and children who participated. We thank Madeleine Rassaby and Brooke Lundgren for their help in conducting the study with research participants.
Authors’ Contribution Statements
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Alicia Fenley. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Alicia Fenley and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH101238, principal investigator: David A. Langer) and from the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. These funding sources had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.
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Alicia R. Fenley, David A. Langer, Peter R. Blake and Donna B. Pincus declare that thay have no conflict of interest.
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Fenley, A.R., Langer, D.A., Blake, P.R. et al. The Relation between Risk Perception and Anxiety in Youth: an Investigation Using a Novel Developmentally Tailored Measure. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 43, 808–821 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-021-09893-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-021-09893-0