The relationships between separation anxiety disorder, childhood traumas, and anxiety sensitivity in a sample of medical students

Abstract

• SEPAD is very common in early years medical students. • The rate of childhood SEPAD criteria is found as 14.9% (n: 55). • The rate of adult SEPAD criteria is found as 20.1% (n: 74). • Adult SEPAD patients have much more childhood traumatic life experiences than others. • Adult SEPAD patients have higher anxiety sensitivity scores than others. The present article aims to investigate the relationships between Separation Anxiety Disorder (SEPAD), anxiety sensitivity, and childhood traumatic life experiences (CTLE) in a sample of medical students. The sample of this study consisted of 369 young adults. The Structured Clinical Interview for Separation Anxiety Symptoms (SCI-SAS) was applied for all participants by researchers. Participants were asked to fill in the socio-demographic form, Separation Anxiety Symptoms Inventory, Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire, Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3, and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. The rate of those with significant childhood SEPAD is 14.9% (n: 55), the rate of those with adult SEPAD is 20.1% (n: 74) in the present study. A statistically significant difference was found in emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and physical abuse sub-scores between participants who met childhood or adult SEPAD criteria of SCI-SAS and those who did not. Moreover, all anxiety sensitivity scores were significantly higher in both groups who met childhood or adult SEPAD criteria than those who did not meet the childhood or adult SEPAD criteria. A limitation of our study is that since we investigated participants based on retrospective recall of childhood SEPAD criteria, this lead to being subject to memory and reporting biases. Second, we measure anxiety sensitivity and CTLE on scales by self-report, sometimes it can cause misinformation. SEPAD may be diagnosed commonly in a medical student sample. Moreover, CTLE and anxiety sensitivity may have a key role in the progress of SEPAD.