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Childhood shyness and maternal social phobia: A community study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Peter J. Cooper  and
Marian Eke
Peter J. Cooper*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Marian Eke
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
*
Professor Peter Cooper, Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Reading, 3 Earley Gate, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AL, UK
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Abstract

Background

Family history data suggest the possibility of an association between childhood shyness and parental social phobia.

Aims

To examine the prevalence of maternal affective disorder in a community sample of four-year-old shy and non-shy children.

Method

By screening 867 children, 43 shy children, 59 children with another form of disturbance (i.e. fearfulness, feeding problem or conduct problem) and 26 children with no disturbance were identified. Interviewers who were unaware of child status used a standardised mental state assessment to determine the rate of affective disorder in the mothers of these children.

Results

Compared with the mothers of the children in both comparison groups, the mothers of the children who were purely shy (i.e. shy children with no comorbid condition) had a significantly raised lifetime rate of anxiety disorder in general, and social phobia in particular. The odds ratio of a social phobia in the mothers of the purely shy children was raised over the normal control group by a factor of more than seven.

Conclusions

These findings suggest a specific association between childhood shyness and maternal social phobia.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 174 , Issue 5 , May 1999 , pp. 439 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

Declaration of interest

Supported by the Tedworth Trust.

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