A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF BIOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTED RISK FACTOR FOR ANXIETY AMONG ANXIOUS CHILDREN

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are chronic, disabling conditions that are distributed across the globe. Woefully, the consistent increase of prevalence rate had affected people across nations range from children to adults. Biological attributed risk factors had associated strongly with the early onset of anxiety during the childhood stage. This current research intended to study the biological risk factors of brain electrical activity, hereditary and gender effect on trait anxiety among anxious children. A total of 36 children, aged ranged from 8 to 13 years old with high trait anxiety level were recruited by using a purposive sampling method. Self- administered STAIC-T and STAIT were used to measure the trait anxiety level of children and parents respectively. Besides, neuroimaging of Quantitative Electroencephalogram (qEEG) brain mapping was administered to study the brain electrical activity and associated brain locations. Pearson’s Correlation was carried out in order to study the relationship between biological risk factors with trait anxiety level. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between parents’ trait anxiety score and children’s trait anxiety score. Preliminary findings indicated that the brain locations of Fp1, F4, F8, T3, and T4 showed a significant relationship with trait anxiety. In conclusion, hereditary and associated brain locations played a role in affecting the trait anxiety level of children and results in the biological vulnerability of anxiety since birth.