Abstract

CAIRES, Monique Cabral  and  SHINOHARA, Helene. Anxiety disorders in children: a look at the communities. Rev. bras.ter. cogn. [online]. 2010, vol.6, n.1, pp.62-84. ISSN 1808-5687.

Anxiety is a natural emotional state with psychological and physiological components that becomes pathological depending on the intensity and frequency of the feeling, or the type of the situation that triggers it. In humans, the most common causes of anxiety are not biological, but psychological, due to symbolic communications, verbal or otherwise, interpreted in the light of concepts, beliefs and values expressed by a socio-cultural community. The most common anxiety disorders in childhood are phobic disorder, social anxiety disorder and separation anxiety. This study aimed to verify the presence of symptoms of anxiety in more violent social settings. Ninety children from 3 different public schools in Rio de Janeiro, located in the communities of Rocinha, Dona Marta and Barrinha, participated in this study. The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) was applied to 30 children from each school, 15 male and 15 female, from 6th to 9th grade. It was observed that the overall average level of anxiety in the community of Rocinha is higher compared to the other two communities evaluated, and nearly double compared to the community of Barrinha. These data show that children who live in Rocinha are more predisposed to develop anxiety disorders, mainly due to the violent social environment in which they live. The communities of Dona Marta and Barrinha, which have been occupied by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro, present greater security and tranquility for the population, and this might have been influenced the lower levels of anxiety of those children

Keywords : child anxiety; cognitive therapy; MASC; public securit.

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