Vol.:(0123456789) Child & Youth Care Forum https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-018-9464-z 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER The Associations of Parents’ and Children’s Anxiety Sensitivity with Child Anxiety and Somatic‑Hypochondriac Symptoms Gabrielle Coppola 1  · Maria Grazia Foschino Barbaro 2  · Antonietta Curci 1  · Michele Simeone 2  · Alessandro Costantini 3  · Marvita Gofredo 2  · Alessandra Latrofa 2  · Daria Di Liso 2  · Wendy K. Silverman 4 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Background The clinical relevance of Anxiety Sensitivity (AS) is well established, as well as the association between parents’ and children’s AS. However, there is little data data on the indirect relation between parents’ AS and children’s anxiety and somatic-hypochon- driac symptoms through children’s AS, and the few fndings available are inconsistent. Objective The study examined, in a community sample, whether children’s AS was associ- ated to their anxiety and somatic-hypochondriac symptoms, and tested whether children’s AS mediated the link between parents’ AS and children’s anxiety and somatic-hypochon- driac symptoms. Methods A total of 392 children and one of their parents completed a battery of questionnaires. Results Children’s AS mediated the links between parents’ AS and children’s anxiety and somatic-hypochondriac symptoms. These pathways were moderated by the child’s age, in that they were signifcant for older children (ages 11–17 years old), but not for younger ones (ages 8–10 years old). Conclusions The fndings advance understanding of how parental AS might be implicated in children’s AS and clinical symptoms. Keywords Anxiety sensitivity · Anxiety symptoms · Somatic-hypochondriac symptoms · Children · Moderated mediation model · Process macro Introduction Research consistently shows that parents contribute to child anxiety as, for example, through insensitive caregiving, inefective emotion socialization practices and scafolding in emotion arousing situations, and modeling of anxious and avoidant behaviors (e.g., Jong- erden and Bögels 2015; Lebowitz et al. 2014; Rubin et al. 2009). Parental characteristics * Gabrielle Coppola gabrielle.coppola@uniba.it Extended author information available on the last page of the article