Anxiety Characterization in Teens before their participation in the Program for Promotion of Life Skills

• Grant number: 14/20644-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2014
• End date: November 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Carmem Beatriz Neufeld
• Grantee: Fernanda Villela Frioli
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The adolescence is a time when teenagers go through several adaptations, having to face different realities from the ones they have already faced. This makes young people react and feel anxious, so it becomes very beneficial the knowledge and the monitoring of the manifestation of anxiety in adolescents. Seen it, this study aims to characterize anxiety symptoms sample of adolescents who were members of the Program for Promotion of Life Skills between 2012 and 2014 in the city of Ribeirão Preto. This consists of a structured program, which aims to provide intervention in promoting psychological health in adolescence based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Intervention sessions aims to implement a set of necessary healthy ways to face the demands of day-to-day skills. In an earlier period of this program, the SCAS test - Spence Child Anxiety Scale is applied in the teens, which evaluates the presence of anxiety symptoms. The results are stored in a database and the data already collected and stored will be analyzed in order to compare the total scores and subscores provided by the test. The data from this study can contribute to the scientific environment, because they are important for the development of more effective intervention programs. It also helps to have a sense of how anxiety is distributed in a portion of adolescents in Ribeirão Preto and to check if the data corroborate with the literature, which indicates that the average anxiety scores of Brazilians is higher than other parts of the world.