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What do young people worry about? A systematic review of worry theme measures of teen and preteen individuals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2020

Marcin Owczarek Open the ORCID record for Marcin Owczarek [Opens in a new window] ,
Grainne McAnee ,
Donal McAteer  and
Mark Shevlin
Marcin Owczarek
Affiliation:
1School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Grainne McAnee
Affiliation:
2The Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Donal McAteer
Affiliation:
1School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Mark Shevlin*
Affiliation:
1School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
*
Author for correspondence: Mark Shevlin, Email: m.shevlin@ulster.ac.uk
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Abstract

Excessive worry can negatively influence one’s developmental trajectories. In the past 70 years, there have been studies aimed towards documenting and analysing concerns or ‘worries’ of teen and preteen individuals. There have been many quantitative and qualitative approaches established, suggesting different themes of contextual adolescent worry. With the hopes of future clinical utility, it is important to parse through these studies and gather what is currently known about what teens and preteens worry about and what is the state of methods used to gather that knowledge. Studies were searched for using Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases and selected on systematic criteria. Data regarding the country in which the study took place, participants, methods of collection, worry themes and conclusions and limitations were extracted. Data were synthesised in a narrative fashion. It was concluded that currently available methods of measuring themes of adolescent worry face certain problems. Themes of worry differ substantially between the studies, with the exception of school performance seeing stable high endorsement across cultures and ages. Issues with ordering worry themes and implications for future understanding of adolescent and preadolescent worry are discussed.

Keywords

adolescentsworrysystematic reviewquantitative researchdevelopment
Type
Review Article
Information
Children Australia , Volume 45 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue: Poverty and Child Abuse , December 2020 , pp. 285 - 295
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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