Anxiogenic parenting practices as predictors of pediatric body-focused repetitive behaviors

Abstract

Pediatric body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) demonstrate significant prevalence and impairment, yet their etiology is poorly understood. Addressing this limitation, the current study sought to explore the relationship between pediatric BFRBs (i.e. skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, lip biting) and anxiogenic parenting (i.e. conflict, over involvement, accommodation, modeling, emotional warmth) – one potential factor in this pathology given established links between BFRBs and anxiety. Five hundred and thirty parents/caregivers of children ages 7–17 (268 exhibiting one or more BFRBs; 262 exhibiting no BFRBs) completed an online survey including an anxiogenic parenting self-report (i.e., The Parenting Anxious Kids Ratings Scale – Parent Report [PAKRS-PR]) and several questions assessing child BFRB presence and severity. Regression analyses indicated that although child anxiety significantly predicted collective BFRB presence and number of BFRBs in which a child engaged, anxiogenic parenting was not a significant predictor in these models. Conversely, results demonstrated that for every one unit increase in PAKRS-PR total score, children were 1.49 times more likely to engage in skin picking (controlling for anxiety). Further exploratory analyses revealed that specific anxiogenic parenting behaviors (i.e., accommodation, emotional warmth) significantly predicted BFRB severity. Implications for these findings, limitations and future areas of research are discussed.