School anxiety profiles in Spanish adolescents and their differences in psychopathological symptoms

PLoS One. 2022 Jan 21;17(1):e0262280. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262280. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

School anxiety and psychopathological symptoms tend to co-occur across development and persist in adulthood. The present study aimed to determine school anxiety profiles based on Lang's model of the triple response system (cognitive anxiety, psychophysiological anxiety, and behavioral anxiety) and to identify possible differences between these profiles in psychopathological symptoms (depression, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, somatization, anxiety, psychoticism, obsessive-compulsive, phobic anxiety, and paranoid ideation). The School Anxiety Inventory (SAI) and the Symptom Assessment-45 Questionnaire (SA-45) were administered to 1525 Spanish students (49% girls) between 15 and 18 years old (M = 16.36, SD = 1.04). Latent Profile Analysis identified four school anxiety profiles: Low School Anxiety, Average School Anxiety, High School Anxiety, and Excessive School Anxiety. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences among the school anxiety profiles in all the psychopathological symptoms examined. Specifically, adolescents with Excessive School Anxiety showed significantly higher levels of the nine psychopathological symptoms than their peers with Average School Anxiety and Low School Anxiety. In addition, the Excessive School Anxiety profile scored significantly higher in phobic anxiety than the High School Anxiety group. These findings allow to conclude that it is necessary enhance well-being and reduce psychopathology of those adolescents who manifest high and very high reactivity in cognitive, psychophysiological, and behavioral anxiety.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Anxiety / metabolism
  • Anxiety / psychology*
  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Personality / classification
  • Personality / physiology
  • Psychopathology
  • Schools
  • Spain
  • Students / psychology*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This research was financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain and FEDER funds (RTI2018-098197-B-I00, URL: https://www.ciencia.gob.es/portal/site/MICINN/) with the project awarded to JMG-F, and the grant for predoctoral researchers from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU16-01386, URL: http://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/portada.html) awarded to AF-S. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.