Observable Symptoms of Anxiety in Individuals with Fragile X Syndrome: Parent and Caregiver Perspectives
Authors
Lozano, ReymundoThompson, Talia
Dixon-Weber, Jayne
Erickson, Craig A
Berry-Kravis, Elizabeth
Williams, Sara
Smith, Elizabeth
Frazier, Jean A
Rosselot, Hilary
Farmer, Cristan
Hessl, David
UMass Chan Affiliations
PsychiatryDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2022-09-16
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Caregiver reports, clinical observations, and diagnostic assessments indicate that most individuals with fragile X syndrome experience high levels of chronic anxiety. However, anxiety is a challenging endpoint for outcome measurement in FXS because most individuals cannot reliably report internal emotional or body states. A comprehensive survey of the presence, frequency, and duration of anxiety-related symptoms and questions to elicit open-ended responses was completed by caregivers of 456 individuals with FXS, ages 2-81 years (87 female, 369 male) and 24 female and 2 male FXS self-advocates ages 15-66 years. Caregivers reported classic behavioral indicators of anxiety, such as avoidance, irritability, motor agitation, and physiological symptoms, as well as behavioral features in FXS such as repetitive behavior, aggression, and self-injury. Self-advocate accounts largely paralleled caregiver data. Factor analyses yielded four factors: (1) increased irritability, aggression, and self-injury; (2) increased physical movement, nervous activity, and restlessness; (3) physical and physiological features of anxiety; and (4) internalizing and gastrointestinal symptoms. Caregivers are capable of observing and reporting behaviors that are valid indicators of anxious states that are usually reported in self-report standardized assessments. These results support the development of an anxiety measure for FXS that minimizes problems with rater inference.Source
Lozano R, Thompson T, Dixon-Weber J, Erickson CA, Berry-Kravis E, Williams S, Smith E, Frazier JA, Rosselot H, Farmer C, Hessl D. Observable Symptoms of Anxiety in Individuals with Fragile X Syndrome: Parent and Caregiver Perspectives. Genes (Basel). 2022 Sep 16;13(9):1660. doi: 10.3390/genes13091660. PMID: 36140827; PMCID: PMC9498703.DOI
10.3390/genes13091660Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/51374PubMed ID
36140827Rights
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).; Attribution 4.0 InternationalDistribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3390/genes13091660
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