L. Kevin Chapman

Race and religion: differential prediction of anxiety symptoms by religious coping in African American and European American young adults†

Background: Psychosocial factors, including religious coping, consistently have been implicated in the expression of anxiety disorders. This study sought to investigate the relationship between religious coping on anxiety symptoms among a nonclinical sample of African American and European American young adults. Methods: One hundred twenty‐one European American and 100 African American young adults completed measures of anxiety and religious coping. Results: As predicted, results differed according to race. African Americans reported significantly more positive religious coping, less negative religious coping, and experienced fewer anxiety symptoms than European Americans. European Americans demonstrated a significant, positive relationship between negative religious coping and anxiety symptoms, and an opposite trend related to anxiety and positive religious coping. However, no such relationships emerged among the African American sample. Conclusions: Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Depression and Anxiety, 2010.

A confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck Anxiety Inventory in African American and European American young adults

The anxiety literature is particularly sparse as it relates to African Americans, and there are few studies to date that have examined the factor structure of anxiety assessment tools within this population. The current study investigated the original two-factor structure of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) in addition to two extant factor structures of the BAI in a non-clinical sample of African American and European American young adults. One hundred twenty one European American and 100 African American young adults completed the BAI. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the previous factor structures of the Beck Anxiety Inventory do not provide the best fit for either the African American or the European American sample. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that an alternative, two-factor model provided the best fit for the sample, particularly for the African American sample. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

A structural equation model analysis of perceived control and psychological distress on worry among African American and European American young adults

Perceived control has been identified as an important factor in the development and maintenance of mood disorders, and worry has been shown to have a unique relationship with psychological distress associated with mood disorders. The relationships between these variables have received little attention in the literature, and even less in terms of the role racial status may serve. The current study investigated the structural relationship between psychological distress and perceived control in predicting self-reported worry as well as potential differences in paths to worry in African American and European American young adults using a structural equation model. One hundred twenty-one European American and 100 African American undergraduate students completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ), and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ). Results suggest that psychological distress and perceived control predict worry in both the African American and European American samples, however there were significant differences in terms of which construct contributed most. For African Americans, psychological distress contributed significantly more to worry than perceived control, whereas low perceived control contributed more to worry for European Americans. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Is handedness related to anxiety? New answers to an old question.

Is handedness related to anxiety? Two separable dimensions of handedness have been considered in previous studies: Direction of the preferred hand (left or right) and the consistency with which the preferred hand is used over the nonpreferred hand (consistent or inconsistent). Findings have included (1) left-handedness being associated with greater anxiety than right-handedness, (2) consistent-handedness being associated with greater anxiety than inconsistent-handedness and (3) neither dimension being associated with anxiety. Here, we administered measures of trait anxiety, state anxiety and worry to individuals classified as consistent-left, inconsistent-left, inconsistent-right or consistent-right. Neither direction nor consistency had a main effect on any measure. However, there was a direction by consistency interaction in trait and state anxiety measured on the State/Trait Anxiety Inventory. Among right-handers, inconsistent individuals reported less anxiety than consistent individuals. Among left-handers, consistency was unrelated to anxiety. In consequence of this pattern, inconsistent right-handers were less anxious than inconsistent left-handers. Hence, supporting prior studies, left-handedness was associated with greater anxiety than right-handedness (but only among inconsistent individuals) and consistency was associated with greater anxiety than inconsistency (but only among right-handers). These findings advance our understanding of handedness consistency as an important individual difference factor in personality and cognition.

Minority inclusion in randomized clinical trials of panic disorder.

In 1993, the National Institutes of Health issued a mandate that funded research must include participation by racial and ethnic minority groups, and researchers were required to include in their proposals strategies by which they would achieve diversity in their samples. A methodological search for randomized clinical trials of panic disorder was conducted to evaluate ethnoracial differences in panic disorder symptoms, rates of minority inclusion in North American studies, and effective methods of minority recruitment. Less than half of the studies identified reported ethnic and racial data for their sample. Of the 21 studies that did report this information (n=2687), 82.7% were European American/non-Hispanic White, 4.9% were African American/Black, 3.4% were Hispanic, 1.1% were Asian American, and 1.4% were another ethnicity. The remaining 6.5% was simply classified as other/non-White. The primary recruitment techniques utilized were clinical referral and advertising, but neither of these methods were correlated with improved minority participation, nor was the number of recruitment sites. As minorities are greatly underrepresented in panic disorder studies, reported treatment outcomes may not generalize to all ethnic and cultural groups. Researchers have not followed NIH guidelines regarding inclusion of special populations. Inclusion of minorities in future studies is needed to fully understand issues related to the treatment of panic disorder in non-White populations. Suggestions for improved recruitment of ethnoracial minorities are discussed.

Processes of Change in Relationship Education for Lower-Income African American Couples

The current study examined 181 lower income unmarried African American couples who were expecting or had a child (3 months or younger). All couples received couple relationship education (PREP). We examined whether changes in communication quality and perceived social integration were related to changes in relationship satisfaction and dedication and whether these associations were consistent for men and women. The results demonstrated that mens and womens change in positive communication and social integration were related to higher ratings of their own dedication and relationship satisfaction. Men reported more relationship satisfaction when their partners negative communication decreased and when their partner reported more social integration; however, there was no association between womens rating of relationship satisfaction and mens changes in negative communication or social integration.

The co-occurrence of anxiety disorders in African American parents and their children

This study examined the co-occurrence of anxiety disorders, specifically the relationship between parent and youth anxiety, in a community-based sample of 100 African American parents and their biological child between the ages of 6 and 17 years. Data were provided by both the parent and child. Parents completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV (ADIS-IV) Client Version about their own experiences with anxiety and related disorders and the Parent version for the childs experiences. Children were administered the ADIS-IV Child version to assess their experiences with anxiety and related disorders. Fifty-five parents met criteria for at least one anxiety disorder while 34 children met criteria for at least one anxiety disorder. Two logistic regressions were subsequently conducted to predict the presence of any form of psychopathology from the ADIS-IV and the presence of an anxiety disorder in African American offspring. Results indicated that African American offspring with an anxious parent were 4 times more likely to meet criteria for both an anxiety disorder and other forms of psychopathology.

Maternal Sensitivity and Anxiety: Impacts on Child Outcome

ABSTRACT Children of anxious parents have been shown to be at an increased risk of developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, it is critically important to identify factors that increase or decrease that risk. The depression literature has shown that maternal sensitivity decreases negative child outcome associated with maternal depression. The current study was designed to determine whether maternal sensitivity may buffer children of anxious mothers in a similar way. Three hypotheses were tested. First, that anxious mothers would display less sensitivity than nonanxious mothers in interactions with their children; that there would be an interaction between sensitivity and anxiety on child outcome; and that sensitivity would account for variance in child outcome beyond that attributed to anxiety. One hundred and twenty-five mothers (75 anxious) and their children (ages 3–12) completed the study. Mothers were administered the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-IV and Parent, and a subset also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Children completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Child. Dyads also engaged in two interaction tasks (one cognitive, one social) which were coded for maternal sensitivity and three child outcome behaviors. Results showed that anxious mothers displayed less sensitivity in the social task but not in the cognitive task. An interaction between anxiety and sensitivity was found only when predicting child negativity in the social task. Finally, maternal sensitivity was found to account for variance in child outcome beyond that of anxiety. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Fear factors: Cross validation of specific phobia domains in a community-based sample of African American adults

The current study attempted a cross-validation of specific phobia domains in a community-based sample of African American adults based on a previous model of phobia domains in a college student sample of African Americans. Subjects were 100 African American community-dwelling adults who completed the Fear Survey Schedule-Second Edition (FSS-II). Domains of fear were created using a similar procedure as the original, college sample of African American adults. A model including all of the phobia domains from the FSS-II was initially tested and resulted in poor model fit. Cross-validation was subsequently attempted through examining the original factor pattern of specific phobia domains from the college sample (Chapman, Kertz, Zurlage, & Woodruff-Borden, 2008). Data from the current, community based sample of African American adults provided poor fit to this model. The trimmed model for the current sample included the animal and social anxiety factors as in the original model. The natural environment-type specific phobia factor did not provide adequate fit for the community-based sample of African Americans. Results indicated that although different factor loading patterns of fear may exist among community-based African Americans as compared to African American college students, both animal and social fears are nearly identical in both groups, indicating a possible cultural homogeneity for phobias in African Americans. Potential explanations of these findings and future directions are discussed.

Anxiogenic Patterns in Mother-Child Interactions

ABSTRACT The current study examined psychosocial variables associated with the development of anxiety in children. While previous literature has established parental affectionless control as an important contributor to the development of anxiety in children, few have examined this construct within the dynamic context of parent-child interaction. In the current study, the affect and behavior of anxious mothers and their children (ages 6 to 12 years) were examined during two mildly stressful tasks, with a total of 64 mother-child dyads participating in the study. Analyses supported the hypothesis that maternal affectionless control mediates the relationship between child anxiety and child disengagement/withdrawal from difficult tasks. Results are discussed in terms of implications for psychosocial mechanisms of the familial transmission of anxiety.