Essay: Review of  Irritability in Youths and Anxiety Disorders

Irritability is an impatient behavior that creates anger in response to frustration. This type of behavior is most likely seen in young adults and children. It is generally divided into two categories that is either mental or medical problems. It also represents certain disorders in DSM-IV. Irritability is described as the most common factor leading to many disorders in DSM-IV (Stringaris A, 2012). There were 650 youths who were presenting themselves for the DSM-IV anxiety disorders and the results concluded that they had clinically significant irritability (Joel Stoddard, 2014).
The Objective was to compare levels of irritability in healthy and the youths that were having anxiety disorders.. It also compares with mood disorders that are indicated by irritability. The hypothesis of the article is that we would find more levels of irritability in parent and self-report and see impairments in patients with anxiety disorders than in healthy individuals. There was also an expectation to find a link between anxiety symptom severity and irritability. The test was also done on secondary analysis of parent and self on the basis of SMD and BD.
The test was done through the ARI that is the Affective Reactivity Index because it was validated and contains a substance that measures the impairments in irritability of youths. There are six items for irritability. To get the results the items three-level rating. (Stringaris A, 2012). The total score ranges between 0-12.There is a specific measure for 8 and older, it is the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders(SCARED) (Birmaher B,1999).It contains 41 items and measured on three level scale. The range of the total score is from 0-82. The comparison was first done in the youths that were having problems with irritability and were taking treatment versus the healthy participants. This primary analysis contained the participants with anxiety disorder patients that were 42 in number and were between 8-17 age group and the healthy contestants were 38 with the same age group as the anxiety disorder patients. Both the comparison groups were assigned by the clinician or self and were enlisted through the advertisement from Washington D.C. (Joel Stoddard, 2014) The data was collected between 2010 and 2012. Research was done through Affective Reactivity Index by master’s or the doctoral level clinicians and confirmed with the senior Psychiatrist( Kaufman J,1997).The second was comparing irritability and anxiety disorders in youths that had SMD and BD with the anxiety youths that were 42 in number.. This had 61 youths with severe mood dysregulation and 35 youths that were suffering from bipolar disorder. All with age group of 8-17 years. The participants were provided with the travel and lodging. The diagnosis was chaired by senior psychiatrist in the consensus conference (Stringaris A., 2012)
The results for the first experiment was expected to have higher levels of irritability and the associated impairments in anxiety disorders related group than in the healthy group. This experiment supported the hypothesis. The results for the second experiment had greater irritability in the mood disorders group both SMD and BD than the anxiety disorders group. The SMD group participants were selected based on the parents’ reports. And the selection for the youths with bipolar disorders was not specific (Comer JS, 2012). There were some limitations in this experiment. Firstly, the parents and self-reported measures were restricted. And the other was that the history of severe mood disorders in anxiety disorder group was excluded. The results of this experiment differed in parent and self-reported irritability (De Los Reyes A, 2005).
Irritability is a factor that is caused by tension and frustration. And then it leads to severe anxiety disorders and mood disorders. The research findings are perfect in its circumstances. The idea of involving parents reports were really helpful because it tends to find out the behavior of parents and how it is impacted on children (Joel Stoddard, 2014). There are different treatments which help to reduce irritability in young adults and children and prevent themselves from further causes. Because irritability can make a person a drug addict, it can lead to alcoholism and ruin their life. Some treatments can be done naturally like doing yoga and meditation, It strengthens our metabolism and makes us lively and calm all day long. This type of practice every day helps to get rid of anxiety and mood dysregulation. And then there are other methods that involve counseling and medical treatments. It is really common to see a child fighting anxiety, but according to my opinion it is because of the type of environment in which he/she lived or is living. The best way to reduce the percentage of youths suffering from all the types of mood disorders is that to have a better environment, to have good health and a good company of people.
According to me, this article is a bit complicated but gives appropriate information. Some of the parts in the area of experiment are confusing. But overall the article generalizes that irritability can get worse if not treated and is found mostly in children and youths. I do agree with it as it is true that most people suffer from anxiety disorders and there are less amount who are the healthy and maintain a healthy balance.
Reference Page
Stoddard, J., Stringaris, A., Brotman, M., Montville, D., Pine, D., & Leibenluft, E. (2014). Irritability in Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders. Depression and Anxiety.