Abstract
Anxiety disorders in the preschool-age population can cause behavioral, social and community concerns. Identifying factors related to flourishing may limit long-term consequences related to the experience of anxiety. The first goal of this study was to examine a national data-set from the 2011/2012 National Survey of Children's Health to determine the frequency of caregivers reporting that their preschool-aged child (between 2 and 5 years) experienced anxiety. The second aim was to detect predictors related to caregiver perceptions of flourishing in children who were described as anxious. Flourishing was a composite measure that included curiosity about learning, resilience, attachment with a caregiver, experiencing contentment and overall positive health status. Findings indicated that 262 children were experiencing moderate to severe anxiety. A regression analyses was used to examine factors that could be related to well-being in children who were anxious. Results indicated that positive behavior and peer relationships were significant predictors of flourishing.
Acknowledgment
The data used for this research were provided by Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, a project of the CAHMI.
Notes
1. Results should be interpreted with respect to the sample, as after several exploratory analyses the authors decided not to use the weighting variable.