European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Background: Anxiety disorders are the most frequent mental disorders encountered in childhood and adolescent years. If left untreated, adolescents with anxiety consequence with poor academic performance, irrational parental relationships, poor vocal adjustments and ultimately to psychiatric illness in adult life. Thus, our study aimed to estimate the prevalence of anxiety disorders among school going adolescents using screen for child anxiety related disorder (SCARED) tool and explore the determinants among adolescents.
Methodology: This is a school-based cross-sectional study conducted in suburban region of Tamilnadu among adolescents (15 – 19 years) in three government schools. Total sample size required was 250, recruited using purposive sampling method. SCARED tool with 5 subscales of anxiety disorder was used to collect data. Frequencies and proportions were used to describe data and multivariate analysis was used to elicit determinants.
Results:Out of 250, 79 (31.6%) students were screened positive for anxiety disorders (95% CI: 29.6 – 37.8). Panic disorder (44.3%) followed by general anxiety disorder (34.1%) were two utmost common type of anxiety. Girls are significantly being affected more [OR:2.24, (1.23 – 7.89)] compared to boys. Others higher age, higher grades are significant determinants of anxiety disorders using Logistic regression. Conclusion:Anxiety disorders are common among adolescents in suburban regions of India. Appropriate health system response will be required to tackle this immense problem. Screening anxiety disorder among adolescent school going children is the need of the hour.