Assignment on Global Burden of Mental Illness

Running head: SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE
SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE
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Name of the university:
Author note:

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE1
Introduction:
With the global burden of mental illness, anxiety disorders have emerged as the most
disorders with the occurrence of 30% in the lifetime (Mannironi et al., 2018). The anxiety
disorders are associated with financial status, societal cost and wide array of personal. This paper
aims to provide a summary of the article “The Intergenerational Transmission of Anxiety: A
Children-of-Twins Study” by Eley et al. (2015). This paper will summarize the nature of the
questions that the study was designed to test, methods of the study, results of the study and
comments and reactions.
Summary of the nature of the question:
The study hypothesized that anxiety disorder can be transmitted through intergeneration
and twins can acquire anxiety from their parents. The prime reason behind this nature of the
question is that is one of the most common features of the anxiety disorders is that it can be
transmitted to generation to generations (Eley et al., 2015). Children can develop clinical signs of
anxiety disorders by indirect learning since children can develop the disorder by observing
anxious behaviors in their parents followed by adopting approach these behaviors themselves
(Eley et al., 2015). Therefore, researchers conducted the experimental study for identifying the
genetic route of the anxiety disorder.
Methodology:
Anxiety and neuroticism measures were conducted on 486 dizygotic same-sex twin
families along with 385 monozygotic twin families. Iani et al.(2017) suggested that neuroticism
measure is one of the most suitable means of measuring emotional stability amongst the

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE2
population. Therefore, it is the most suitable measure for assessing anxiety. Parental anxious
personality was self-reported with the assistance of Karolinska Scales of Personality which
suitable scale for measuring a social aspect of anxiety. On the other hand, the structural equation
modelling program used for assessing genetic measures.
Results of the study:
The result of the study suggested that the models successfully supported direct
environmental transmission of the anxiety as well as neuroticism from the parent to their
adolescents’ offspring. However, there is limited evidence present that supported the hypothesis
of genetic transmission of anxiety from one generation to another generation (Eley et al., 2015).
Anxious parents usually involve in anxious parental practice which impact the development of
the children as a relationship with the primary caregiver is considered as the foundation of the
development and relationship with other individuals (Eley et al., 2015). The anxious parents
usually proved to be more likely to exhibit over-controlling behavior compared to the parents
who have no anxiety, and the anxious parents are proved to be more negative well as controlling
of their offspring. Therefore, the children of anxious parents usually develop anxiety (Hanseeuw
et al., 2019). Combination of depression and fears from adolescence into young adulthood is also
common for the children whose parents are anxious. Therefore, the hypothesis can be used in
future for conducting extended studies.
Comments:
Eley et al. (2015), conducted a study based on the Intergenerational Transmission of
Anxiety which can provide researchers with a road map for measuring the anxiety and emotional
stability of the adolescents based on parental practice and learning behaviors. It will enable