< Back

Presenter: Yasmin Rey, M.A., Florida International University

Latino and European American Youth and Parent Endorsements of Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) Symptoms

Authors: Yasmin Rey, Wendy Silverman, Elssy Oms, Giannina Silva

Background:
The little research that has compared Latino (LAT) and European American (EA) anxious youth and their parents (e.g., Ginsburg & Silverman, 1996; Pina & Silverman, 2004; Rey, Pina, & Silverman, 2006) suggests more similarities than differences along most variables. Youth-parent endorsements of SAD, however, represent one area where differences have been observed (Rey, Pina, & Silverman, 2006): EA youth and parents show excellent agreement (κ = .85); LAT youth and parents do not (κ = .57). The present study further examined how LAT and EA youth and parents view the symptoms of SAD. Although parents, regardless of ethnicity, might not notice covert SAD symptoms (e.g., child worry about harm befalling parent), of interest here is whether LAT parents do not notice/report overt SAD symptoms (e.g., child refuses to be left alone). Examining this issue can serve as a platform for further theory driven investigations that can shed light on cultural factors that account for LAT parents’ perceptions about their child’s behavioral and emotional problems.

Method:
Participants were 143 youth (81 boys; 8 - 14 years, M = 9.70; SD = 2.07; 18.8% EA, 81.2% LAT) and their parents who presented to a childhood anxiety disorders clinic. Youth and parent responses to the SAD module of the ADIS-IV: C/P (Silverman & Albano, 1996) were classified as overt (range = 0 to 3) or covert (range = 0 to 3) and respectively summed. 

Results:
Both LAT and EA youth endorsed significantly more covert symptoms than their parents (LAT: t [105] = 4.49, p < .001; EA: t [25] = 2.16, p < .05).  Only LAT youth, however, endorsed significantly more overt SAD symptoms than their parents, t (105) = 2.73 (p < .007).

Conclusions:
Findings suggest that although both LAT and EA parents do not notice/report covert SAD symptoms in their child, LAT parents do not notice/report the overt symptoms of SAD. Further details of these findings as well as potential implications they hold for conducting future research aimed at understanding cultural factors that may influence parents’ views of their children’s problems will be discussed in the presentation.