| Childhood anxiety may lead to serious health consequences in later life. The present study provides the prevalence, comorbidity, and predictors of anxiety disorders among children and adolescents. This was a crosssectional national project that was implemented on 28,698 children and adolescents in Iran. Participants entered
the study by multistage cluster sampling with an equal number of each gender and three age groups (6-9, 10-14,
and 15-18 years) within each cluster. The tools used in this research were the demographic questionnaire and KSADS-PL. To analyze the data logistic regression and chi-square tests were used in SPSS (ver. 16). The prevalence
of anxiety disorder in children and adolescents was 13.2 in boys and 15.1 in girls. Furthermore, gender, age,
place of residence and history of psychiatric hospitalization of parents could predict anxiety disorders. Anxiety
disorders had comorbidity with behavioral disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, mood disorders, psychotic
disorders, substance abuse disorders, and elimination disorders. According to our findings in this study, anxiety
disorders affect the performance, health and life of children and adolescents, identifying the childhood anxiety,
as well as finding diseases that are associated with anxiety disorders, can help in the prevention of the disorder. |