Experience of parents of children with anxiety; How society responds
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How does society respond to childhood anxiety and is this enough? An exploration of the journey of childhood anxiety from the perspective of the parents including their views of the child’s experience
IRAS ID
219485
Contact name
Johanne Tomlinson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Wolverhampton university
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
Childhood and adolescence is the core risk phase for developing anxiety ranging from short-lived to full blown anxiety disorders. Often co-occurring with depression and behavioural disorders and impacting negatively on educational achievements, family/peer relationships and leisure activities. It is common for childhood anxiety to remain untreated well into adulthood placing individuals at high risk of suffering with anxiety and depression throughout adulthood impacting on both life outcomes and quality of life.
In terms of the public health burden associated with untreated childhood anxiety severe consequences exist, including self-medication with drugs and alcohol. However, despite these reports for many children access to children’s mental health services remains as challenging today as it was 20 years ago with many children not receiving the correct level of care from services (Campbell et al 2013).
Parents of children with anxiety hold a wealth of knowledge on what it is truly like to live with a child suffering anxiety being ideally placed to provide information on what is needed to meet the care needs of children with anxiety. Despite this a lack of published literature exists exploring the personal experiences of childhood anxiety from the parent’s perspective.
Therefore I intend to explore the journey of childhood anxiety from the perspective of the parents including their own journey and their views of the child’s experience. This will be achieved by putting the following question to parents; “what is it like to have a child with anxiety?”
It is intended that the outcomes of this research will demonstrate anxiety’s multi-layered effect on the child and family while providing information and recommendation’s to contribute to the development of knowledge on the care needs of children with anxiety and their families.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0372
Date of REC Opinion
25 Oct 2017
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion