A HIGH-RISK PILOT-STUDY OF THE CHILDREN OF ADULTS WITH SOCIAL PHOBIA

Objective: Children of patients with social phobia were studied to est imate their rates of psychiatric disorder. Method: Twenty-six social-p hobic outpatients who had at least one child between the ages of 4 and 18 years participated in the study. information was collected from pa rents on all 47 children and from the children between 12 and 18 years of age. Diagnoses in the children were made based on DSM-III-R and we re done by a best-estimate method, using parent and child reports from a modified Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children, the Sur vey Diagnostic Instrument, the Current Self-Report Childhood Inhibitio n Scale, and the Alcohol Dependence Survey. Results: Of the 47 childre n, 49% had at least one lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis. The most common diagnoses were overanxious disorder (30%), social phobia (23%), and separation anxiety disorder (19%). Sixty-five percent had more th an one anxiety disorder diagnosis. Lifetime major depression was found in 8.5% of the children. Parents whose children met criteria for an a nxiety disorder had a greater mean number of comorbid diagnoses than d id the parents of unaffected children. Conclusion: This pilot study su ggests that children of social-phobic parents may have increased rates of psychiatric disorder. Further studies incorporating a control grou p are needed.