(PS7-44) Mother and Child Anxiety Stigma: Comparisons and the Effect of Child Anxiety

Mental health stigma has been shown to be one of the most significant barriers to treatment seeking (Clement et al., 2015). Because parents may act as “gatekeepers” to their children accessing mental health care, parent mental health stigma is important to understand in order to maximize treatment access. Further, although studies have shown that mental health stigma in children appears as early as age six, there is a general lack of understanding of its development and correlates (Kaushik et al., 2016). Traits that parents exhibit may be passed onto their children through environmental mechanisms (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Indeed, previous research suggests that children who have caregivers with greater mental health stigma hold higher levels of stigma (Kaushik et al., 2016). However, there is also a belief that mental health is becoming less stigmatized in younger cohorts. The current study seeks to understand the connection between parent and child anxiety stigma, and to test the cohort effect of mental health stigma. Anxiety stigma is specifically crucial to focus on due to anxiety being one of the most common types of disorders in childhood (Bitsko et al., 2022). Further, behavioral inhibition, a measure of a child’s anxiety proneness, was examined as a potential moderator of the effects of parental stigma on child stigma to examine if a child’s experiences with anxiety impact anxiety stigma levels.

Socioeconomically diverse families (n=232) are participating in an ongoing longitudinal study. Of these, 66 families (child age 10-13, 69% male, 84% White) have participated in the ongoing phase of the study (data collection will be complete by August 2025 and analyses will be updated accordingly). Mothers and children reported anxiety stigma using the Generalized Anxiety Stigma Scale (GASS; Griffiths et al., 2011; alpha=.88 and .79, respectively). Child anxiety proneness was measured observationally from the Risk Room (Goldsmith et al., 1999) at child ages 2-4 years.

A paired-samples t-test revealed that mothers (M=1.38) had significantly lower anxiety stigma than their children (M=1.83; t=4.86, p< .001). Mom anxiety stigma and child anxiety stigma were not significantly correlated with each other (p=.998), nor was early behavioral inhibition correlated with either mom or child stigma later in life (p=.838 and p=.935, respectively). Additionally, behavioral inhibition did not moderate the relation between mom stigma and child stigma. Findings suggest that anxiety stigma may not be as heritable as believed and may be more so influenced by other factors, such as age. Children had significantly higher anxiety stigma than their parents, arguing against the cohort effect. It is possible that as one ages, they are exposed to more people who have an anxiety disorder—exposure to a group typically decreases stigma held about said group (Pettigrew, 1998). Findings also demonstrate that child anxiety levels may not affect level of anxiety stigma in both mothers and the children themselves. Findings may inform intervention targets for reducing stigma and increasing treatment access.