Abstract

Anxiety is the most common mental health diagnosis for adolescents. Among important etiological factors are parent anxiety and parenting behavior, which can increase anxiety in adolescents. Adolescent anxiety can also act as a source of stress for parents that then increases parent anxiety and negative parenting behaviors. Using the Family Stress Model, this study aims to examine the longitudinal and bidirectional relationship between parent and adolescent anxiety with parental psychological control acting as a mediator. Structural equation modeling was used to examine these relationships across five waves of data for 457 families. Adolescents (51.86% female, mean age 13.34 at wave one) and their parents (352 fathers and 457 mothers) participated in this study. While results did not fully support the hypotheses, interesting relationships among study variables indicated the importance of adolescent gender and development when studying the impact of parents and parenting on anxiety. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Family Life

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2021-07-27

Document Type

Dissertation

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd11788

Keywords

adolescents, anxiety, parents, bidirectional, gender differences

Language

english

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