title: Parental responsibility beliefs: associations with parental anxiety and behaviours in the context of childhood anxiety disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  High levels of parental anxiety are associated with poor treatment outcomes for children with anxiety disorders. Associated parental cognitions and behaviours have been implicated as impediments to successful treatment. We examined the association between parental responsibility beliefs, maternal anxiety and parenting behaviours in the context of childhood anxiety disorders.
  
  
  METHODS
  Anxious and non-anxious mothers of 7-12 year old children with a current anxiety disorder reported their parental responsibility beliefs using a questionnaire measure. Parental behaviours towards their child during a stressor task were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Parents with a current anxiety disorder reported a greater sense of responsibility for their child's actions and wellbeing than parents who scored within the normal range for anxiety. Furthermore, higher parental responsibility was associated with more intrusive and less warm behaviours in parent-child interactions and there was an indirect effect between maternal anxiety and maternal intrusive behaviours via parental responsibility beliefs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The sample was limited to a treatment-seeking, relatively high socio-economic population and only mothers were included so replication with more diverse groups is needed. The use of a range of stressor tasks may have allowed for a more comprehensive assessment of parental behaviours.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that parental anxiety disorder is associated with an elevated sense of parental responsibility and may promote parental behaviours likely to inhibit optimum child treatment outcomes. Parental responsibility beliefs may therefore be important to target in child anxiety treatments in the context of parental anxiety disorders.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AL, UK.
authors.forename: Adela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Apetroaia
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AL, UK. Electronic address: claire.hill@reading.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AL, UK.
authors.forename: Cathy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Creswell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Anxiety; Behaviours; Beliefs; Child; Parent; Responsibility