Perceção parental das estratégias usadas pela criança para lidar com a ansiedade social

Abstract

Anxiety Disorders have a high prevalence and impact on psychosocial adjustment during childhood and adolescence, with social anxiety disorder being among the most common. Due to the internal nature of anxiety disorder symptoms, it is not always easy for parents to detect the problem. The main objectives of the present investigation are: 1) to characterize the social anxiety symptoms in children with social anxiety disorder; 2) to identify the strategies used by children with social anxiety disorder when they are anxious, from the perspective of their parents; 3) to explore the fears underlying the main social situations feared by children. This study has a mixed, transversal and exploratory design. The sample is made up of 35 children, between 8 and 12 years old (42,9% boys and 57,1% girls) and 35 parents between 30 and 53 years old (51,4% female and 48,6% male). The results reveal the existence of anxiety symptoms, mainly focused on performance issues, associated with fear of negative evaluation by others. The study also reveals that a large proportion of the parents (25,7%) do not identify strategies used by their children to cope with anxiety, largely due to their lack of knowledge. The present research represents a contribution to the literature as it focuses not only on the children's perception of their social anxiety symptoms but also on parents' perception of the strategies used by their children to deal with social anxiety.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	Portuguese
Supervisor	Patrícia M. Pascoal (Supervisor) & ANA FILIPA GORDINO BEATO (Supervisor)