Browsing by Subject "lapsuuden erokokemukset vanhemmista"

Objectives: Anxiety symptoms are among the most common psychiatric problems in late adulthood, and they have a wide negative impact on an individual's physical and psychological health. Stressful life experiences may increase anxiety symptoms throughout life, even in late adulthood. The purpose of this master's thesis was to study the association between stressful life experiences, such as self-reported trauma, low socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood and early separation from parents, and self-reported anxiety symptoms in late adulthood. Moreover, the aim was to examine if cumulative stressful life experiences are associated with a greater amount of anxiety symptoms in later life. Methods: This study comprised 1872 participants of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study born in Helsinki in 1934-1944. The participants completed the BAI anxiety questionnaire in 2007-2009. In addition to this, 1266 of the participants completed the TEC questionnaire in 2001-2004, inquiring about traumatic events throughout life. Information about the participants' socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood and childhood separation from parents due to war was based on data from national registers. The association between the different stressful life experiences and anxiety symptoms in late adulthood was examined using linear regression analysis. Moreover, the number of traumatic experiences, the age in which trauma and separation were experienced, and cumulative stressful life experiences as risk factors for anxiety symptoms were examined using one-way ANOVA and t-tests. Participants' age, sex, parity and mother's age were used as covariates. Results and conclusions: As expected, higher amount of self-reported traumatic experiences were associated with higher levels of anxiety symptoms in late adulthood. This association was also found for physical and emotional trauma separately. Moreover, lower socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood were associated with a higher amount of anxiety symptoms. However, no significant association between childhood separation and later anxiety symptoms was found. Stressful life experiences both in childhood and in adulthood were associated with later anxiety symptoms. Cumulativeness of different stressful life experiences was associated with self-reported anxiety symptoms: the higher amount of stressful life experiences an individual had experienced during life course, the higher was the amount of anxiety symptoms. In conclusion, our results suggest that stressful life experiences throughout life course may increase anxiety symptoms in late adulthood.