Management Guidelines for Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents

Anxiety disorders represent one of the most common categories of psychopathology in children and adolescents. Apart from separation anxiety disorder, a well recognized problem of childhood, it is now widely accepted that generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and panic disorder all occur during the childhood and adolescent years. Numerous studies examining the nature and treatment of anxiety disorders have appeared during the recent years. Significant advances in this area include the investigation of pharmacological agents and development of effective psychosocial interventions. Prevalence rates for having at least one childhood anxiety disorder vary from 6% to 20% over several large epidemiological studies (Costello et. al., 2004). Co-morbidity is extremely common among children and adolescent suffering from anxiety disorders. A recent study of children aged 8 13 years, having a primary diagnosis of anxiety disorder revealed that 79% of the sample also had another co-morbid anxiety disorder, mood disorder or behavior disorder (Kendall et. al., 2001). In view of such findings, consideration needs to be given to co-morbidities as their presence will guide selection of specific treatments.