Abstract :
Background: Anxiety is one of the most common psychological disorders in school-aged children and
adolescents worldwide. Anxiety is associated with substantial negative effects on children’s social, emotional
and academic success.
Objectives: To find out the prevalence of anxiety among adolescent students and its association with sociodemographic factors in rural block Beri.
Methods: It was a cross sectional study taking the sample size of 600 (300 males and 300 females) studying
in class 8th to 12th. A pre-designed, pre-tested tool SCL 90 R containing 90 items was used to screen
anxiety in these students. Anxiety is one of the psychiatric morbidities screened by this tool. Cut off point
of estimated raw score of 1 was used to label as anxiety.
Results: It was observed that nearly 18.5% adolescents suffered from anxiety. Anxiety was highest in 17-19
years age group (30.4%) followed by mid adolescence phase (13-16 years). Anxiety was maximum in 10th
and 12th standard students which were 19.3% and 24% respectively. It was significantly high among females
(23.7%) than males (13.7%). Anxiety was maximum in upper and lower socio-economic class of students
with 24.1% and 22.3% respectively. It was more among students whose mothers were unemployed (19.5%)
than those whose mothers were employed (14.6%).
Conclusion: More than one – third (35%) of study subjects who were apparently healthy suffered from
unnoticed anxiety. Appropriate counseling through school-based screening programme is the urgent need
of the hour.
Keyword :
Adolescent, Anxiety, School adolescents