Anxiety disorder of 3-6 year-old children

Context: Anxiety is the most common disorder in childhood. Several factors may play a role in anxiety, such as child’s emotional and social behavior and mother employment.
Aims: the present study aims to evaluate the anxiety disorders of 3–6‑year‑old children of nurses working in the educational hospitals in the city of Qazvin.
Settings and Design: This cross‑sectional study was performed in September 2018.
Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive‑analytical study. Spence anxiety scale for preschool children was used to collect data. In this self‑report instrument, parents are asked to rate the frequency of child behavior on a 5‑point Likert scale from Never (0) to Ever (4). The children with a score above 34 were rated as having anxiety disorder. One hundred and fifty‑five nurses were willing to participate in the study. Inclusion criteria for children were 3–6 years of age, for nurses were being employed in educational hospitals of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences and the exclusion criteria of this study moving from Qazvin to another city.
Statistical Analysis Used: Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 ( SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA), univariate and multivariate regression coefficients. P < 0.05 were considered as significant levels.
Results: The results showed that 32.9% of children of the nurses had anxiety disorder and there was a significant positive relationship between child gender (P = 0.008), child care during hospital shifts (P = 0.013) and anxiety among in these children. Furthermore, the prevalence of anxiety disorder in girls and child care by other family members were associated with the anxiety.
Conclusions: Nurses are exposed to work‑family conflicts due to their occupational conditions, which play an important role in children’s anxiety and it declares the need to pay more attention to this large segment of society. To generalize the results, it is suggested that this study be conducted on the statistical population of other regions of the country.