Anxiety levels in mothers of children affected by x-fragile syndrome

Abstract

Introduction: Anxiety is the psychological process by which the individual reacts to dangerous external stimuli, triggering responses (mediated by norepinephrine, GABA and serotonin) involving physiological reactions and cognitive strategies. Anxiety can be differentiated in state anxiety and trait anxiety. Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) is a disorder most commonly caused by a triplet repeat expansion of > 200 cytosine-guanine-guanine (CGG) repeats in the 50 untranslated region of the Fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene. Aim of the present study is investigating the state or trait anxiety in a sample of mothers of children affected by X-fragile. Materials and methods: 84 mothers (mean age 48.36 ± 7.11) of children affected by FXS were recruited and compared with mother of 171 typical developing children (mean age 46.18 ± 9.53). The Scale State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults (STAI) was used in order to assess the anxiety levels. Results: All mothers of children affected by FXS showed high score of anxiety levels at the STAI evaluation (Table 1), with no differences were found between mothers of males and females children affected. Conclusions: Mothers of children with FXS appear to be in a state of anxiety effects and suddenly even higher than those found later in mothers of children with other chronic diseases.