Study identifies risk factors for increased anxiety in young adults during COVID-19 pandemic

News Release

Friday 12 February 2021

Findings on the impact of childhood temperament can help with anxiety prevention efforts.

A new study has identified early risk factors that predicted increased anxiety in young adults during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The findings from the study, supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, can help predict who is at greatest risk of developing anxiety during stressful life events in early adulthood and inform the prevention and intervention efforts.

The researchers examined data from 291 participants followed from infancy to young adulthood as part of a larger study on temperament and socio-emotional development. The researchers found that participants who had a temperament trait in childhood called behavioral inhibition were more likely to experience anxiety regulation in adolescence (age 15), which in turn predicted increased anxiety during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. when the participants were in young adulthood (about 18 years old).

“People differ a lot about how they deal with stress,” said Daniel Pine, MD, a study author and head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Division of Developmental and Affective Neuroscience. “This study shows that the degree of fear of children predicts how much stress they experience later in life when they face difficult circumstances, such as the pandemic.”

Behavioral inhibition is a childish temperament characterized by high levels of cautious, fearful, and avoidant reactions to unfamiliar people, objects, and situations. Previous studies have found that children who exhibit behavioral inhibition are at increased risk of later developing anxiety disorders. However, less research has investigated the specific mechanisms by which a stable pattern of behavioral inhibition in childhood is linked to anxiety in young adulthood.

The authors of this study hypothesized that children who show a stable pattern of behavioral inhibition may be at greater risk for anxiety regulation in adolescence – that is, problems managing anxiety and inappropriate expressions of concern – and this will increase risk for later causes. increased anxiety during stressful events such as the pandemic.

In the larger study, behavioral inhibition at ages 2 and 3 was measured using observations of children’s responses to new toys and interactions with unknown adults. When the children were 7 years old, they were noticed for social vigilance during an unstructured free task with an unknown counterpart. Care dysregulation was assessed at age 15 through a self-report survey. For the present study, participants, at an average age of 18, were assessed twice during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic for anxiety after issuing stay-at-home orders (only between April 20 and May 15 and approximately one month later).

At the first assessment, 20% of participants reported moderate levels of anxiety symptoms considered clinical. In the second assessment, 18.3% of participants reported clinical levels of anxiety. As expected, the researchers found that individuals with high behavioral inhibition in infancy who still displayed a high level of social alertness in their childhood reported that they experienced unregulated anxiety in adolescence, and this predicted increased anxiety in young maturity during a critical stage of the pandemic. This developmental pathway was not significant for children who exhibited behavioral inhibition in toddlers, but had a low level of social alertness later in childhood.

“This study provides further evidence of the continuing impact of early life temperature on the mental health of individuals,” said Nathan A. Fox, Ph.D., professor professor and director of the Child Development Lab at the University of Maryland, College. Park, and an author of the study. “Young children with a stable inhibition of behavior are at greater risk for worry and anxiety, and the context of the pandemic has only increased these effects.”

The findings suggest that focusing on childhood social alertness and dysregulation in adolescence may be a viable strategy for preventing anxiety disorders. The findings also suggest that it may be particularly important to identify those who are at risk for unregulated anxiety in adolescence who may be at risk for increased anxiety during stressful life events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and to increase the anxiety.

Award: MH093349, HD017899

About the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illness through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. Visit the NIMH website for more information.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the country’s medical research agency, contains 27 institutes and centers and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, investigating the causes, treatments, and drugs for common and rare diseases. Visit www.nih.gov for more information on NIH and its programs.

NIH… To turn discovery into health^®

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