Following the COVID-19 pandemic, prevalence rates of psychiatric diagnoses among children and adolescents are rising. Multiple variables including individual psychological characteristics, pandemic-related stressors and systemic factors conspire to catalyze anxiety spectrum disorders. Several dispositional vulnerabilities such as intolerance of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity are especially important to identify and mitigate because they contribute to catastrophizing. This predisposed style of ideation toward thinking the worst, contributes to health-related anxieties in children and Accordingly, practitioners need to carefully assess these characteristics using state-of- the science measures such as self-report instruments (e.g. Intolerance of Uncertainty in Children, SCARED, the Illness Attitude Scale), parental measures (e.g., the parent version of the Illness Worry Scale, the Protect Subscale of the Adult Responses to Children’s Symptoms scale), and clinician measures (e.g., Rating Scale of Hypochondriacal Beliefs scale, Heightened Illness Concern Servility Scale).
This presentation teaches practitioners how to construct a conceptual map for understanding and mitigating health-related anxieties in the post-pandemic era. Specifically, participants will learn about the health related anxieties in children and adolescents have experienced since the Covid-19 pandemic and the tools they can use to aid in treating health-related anxieties.