(PS5-13) Baseline and Daily Anxiety and Irritability in Preschool-aged Children Are Associated with Parent Accommodation

Introduction: Parent accommodation of child anxiety has been documented widely in clinical samples of school-aged children (Lebowitz et al., 2013). Although some studies have identified parent accommodation of anxiety in community samples of preschool-aged children (Kiel & Baumgartner, 2023), this work is minimal; earlier identification of these links could reduce risk for child anxiety. In addition, despite high rates of co-occurrence between child anxiety and irritability (Shimshoni et al., 2020), research on parent accommodation of youth irritability is minimal (Cabrera et al., 2023). Finally, no studies to our knowledge examine daily accommodation. The present study investigates preschool-aged children’s anxiety and irritability and parent accommodation at baseline and on a daily basis. Given that co-occurring child anxiety and irritability is associated with greater severity and impairment (Cornacchio et al., 2016; Shimshoni et al., 2020), the present study will also examine whether child irritability moderates the relationship between child anxiety and parent accommodation.

Methods: The present study included N=208 parents (93% mothers) of 3-5-year-old children (53% female; M_age=4.32, SD=.84; 62% white). Parents completed the Family Accommodation Scale-Anxiety and Family Accommodation Scale-Irritability (parent accommodation); Preschool Anxiety Scale-Revised (child anxiety); Affective Reactivity Index (child irritability); and a 16-day daily diary assessing child anxiety and irritability intensity, and parent accommodation of anxiety and irritability.

Results: Analyses were preregistered. Liner regressions and moderations were conducted with significant demographic covariates. Multilevel Modeling (MLM) was used to analyze daily data; Level 1 predictors were group-mean centered, and Level 2 covariates were grand-mean centered/effect-coded. Greater baseline child anxiety and irritability were associated with greater parent accommodation of anxiety and irritability, respectively (B=.43, SE=.07, p< .001; B=.06, SE=.01, p< .001). Daily child anxiety and irritability were associated with daily parent accommodation of anxiety and irritability, respectively (B=.10, SE=.03, p< .001; B=.11, SE=.02, p< .001). Baseline child irritability moderated the relationship between baseline child anxiety and parent accommodation of anxiety (B=.06, SE=.02, p< .01), such that elevated child irritability predicted greater parent accommodation in children with elevated anxiety (B = .38, SE = .09, p < .001). Daily child irritability did not moderate the relationship between daily child anxiety and parent accommodation of anxiety.

Conclusions: These results extend research on parent accommodation in clinical samples of school-aged children by identifying associations between child anxiety and irritability and parent accommodation both globally and daily in a community sample of preschool-aged children. The findings also suggest increased levels of parent accommodation of children’s anxiety with heightened child irritability globally, but not on a daily basis. These findings suggest that parent accommodation can be identified earlier in development for prevention of child anxiety.