Population-Based Teacher-Rated Assessment of Anxiety Among Canadian Kindergarten Children

Magdalena Janus; Julia Ryan; Molly Pottruff; Caroline Reid-Westoby; Marni Brownell; Teresa Bennett; Catherine S Birken; Eric Duku; Mark A Ferro; Barry Forer; Stelios Georgiades; Jan Willem Gorter; Martin Guhn; Jonathon Maguire; Heather Manson; Jacqueline Pei; Rob Santos; Robert J Coplan

doi:10.1007/s10578-022-01332-9

Population-Based Teacher-Rated Assessment of Anxiety Among Canadian Kindergarten Children

Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2023 Oct;54(5):1309-1320. doi: 10.1007/s10578-022-01332-9. Epub 2022 Mar 4.

Authors

Magdalena Janus¹, Julia Ryan², Molly Pottruff³, Caroline Reid-Westoby³, Marni Brownell⁴, Teresa Bennett³, Catherine S Birken^{5

6}, Eric Duku³, Mark A Ferro⁷, Barry Forer⁸, Stelios Georgiades³, Jan Willem Gorter^{9

10}, Martin Guhn⁸, Jonathon Maguire^{5

11}, Heather Manson¹², Jacqueline Pei¹³, Rob Santos⁴, Robert J Coplan²

Affiliations

¹ Offord Centre for Child Studies, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience, McMaster University, BAHT 132, 1280 Main St. West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada. janusm@mcmaster.ca.
² Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
³ Offord Centre for Child Studies, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience, McMaster University, BAHT 132, 1280 Main St. West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada.
⁴ Department of Community Health Sciences, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁶ The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁷ School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
⁸ Human Early Learning Partnership, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
⁹ Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹⁰ CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹¹ Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada.
¹² Public Health Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada.
¹³ Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Abstract

Despite anxiety being a prevalent mental health problem in children, little data exist on the pervasiveness and levels of anxiety symptoms in kindergarteners. Data from the Early Development Instrument, a teacher-completed, population-level measure of child development, were collected across Canada from 2004 to 2015. The final analytic sample consisted of 974,319 children of whom 2.6% were classified as "highly anxious". Compared to children who exhibited "few to none" anxious behaviors, highly anxious children were more likely to be male, have English/French as a second language, and have a special needs designation. Furthermore, compared with their less anxious peers, highly anxious children had between 3.5 and 6.1 higher odds of scoring below the 10^th percentile cut-off in physical, social, language/cognitive and communication domains. Our findings suggest that anxious behaviors are related to children's overall health and illustrate the consistency and extensiveness of anxiety at a very young age among Canadian children.

Keywords: Anxiety; Canada; Early Development Instrument; Early child development; Kindergarten.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety* / diagnosis
Anxiety* / psychology
Canada
Child
Child Development*
Child Health
Female
Humans
Male