Longitudinal Associations Between Perceived Parent-Adolescent Attachment Relationship Quality and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms in Adolescence

This longitudinal study examined the direction of effects between adolescents’ generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms and perceived parent-adolescent attachment relationship quality, as well as the moderating role of gender and age. 1,313 Dutch adolescents (48.5% boys) from two age cohorts of early (n = 923, Mage = 12 at W1) and middle (n = 390, Mage = 16 at W1) adolescents completed questionnaires regarding their attachment relationship to parents and GAD symptoms in four waves. Cross-lagged path analyses demonstrated that adolescents’ GAD symptoms and perceived father-adolescent attachment relationship quality bidirectionally negatively affected each other over time. For mothers, adolescents’ GAD symptoms negatively predicted perceived mother-adolescent attachment relationship quality over time. The within-wave correlated residuals between perceived attachment relationship quality with fathers and GAD symptoms were stronger for boys than for girls and stronger for the cohort of middle adolescents than for the cohort of early adolescents. This study demonstrates that both the parents’ and the adolescents’ gender as well as the adolescents’ age affects the relation between adolescents’ GAD symptoms and perceived parent-adolescent attachment relationship quality

Life satisfaction as a mediator between distressing events and neurotic impairment in a general population

Quality of life and life satisfaction have often been investigated as concomitant variables of anxious and depressive symptoms as well as an outcome measure in psychotherapy research. In the present prospective survey, life satisfaction and stressful events function as independent variables predicting the development of neurotic disturbances in a general population. A random sample of 184 adults completed two quality of life surveys (1990 and 1992). Results showed that satisfaction in relevant life domains was related to the mental status assessed 2 years later, and more specifically, that domain satisfactions were mediators of the event-impairment relationship. It is argued that life satisfaction might be considered as a vulnerability or resistance factor with regard to stress-related disorders