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Aim: Anxiety disorders usually remain undiagnosed in school students owing to the internalized nature of their symptoms. The present study was conducted with the primary objective of evaluating the prevalence of anxiety symptoms in school students in Mumbai. A secondary objective was to assess the impact of variables (age, gender, presence of sibling, and type of school curriculum or school) on anxiety symptoms., Materials and Methods: Study cases (8-15 year olds) were recruited by nonprobability sampling from four English-medium schools. Anxiety was measured using Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS)-child self-report questionnaire. T-scores (total and subscales) were calculated and cut-off scores of> 60 were considered as significant., Results: Symptoms of overall anxiety were present in 10.8% (53/493) of the students. Older students (12-15 year olds) had greater odds of having overall anxiety symptoms (crude OR = 4.36, 95% CI 2.27 to 8.39, P < 0.0001). Symptoms of all anxiety disorders were present in the 493 participants, with obsessions/compulsions and fears of physical injury being the most common (in 29.6% and 27.2%, respectively). Older students and boys had greater odds of having obsessions/compulsions (crude OR = 2.32, 95% CI 1.56 to 3.44, P < 0.0001; and crude OR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.04 to 2.27, P= 0.035, respectively]. Students with sibling (s) had greater odds of having fears of physical injury (crude OR = 0.48, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.78, P= 0.003)., Conclusions: There is an urgent need to screen school students in our city for anxiety disorders., Competing Interests: Sunil Karande is the Editor of the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine

Background and Objectives: School students with specific learning disabilities (SpLDs) experience chronic academic underachievement and resultant stress. The present study aimed to determine if school students with newly diagnosed SpLD were more likely to have anxiety than their regular peers., Materials and Methods: The study cases (aged 8-15 years) were recruited from our institute's learning disability clinic. The matched controls were recruited from four schools in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Anxiety was measured using the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS)-child self-report version questionnaire. Median SCAS scores and the proportion of students with an SCAS score in the "clinical anxiety" range were compared between the groups., Results: SCAS scores were significantly higher in 8-11-year-old learning-disabled male and female students (P < 0.0001 for both groups) and 12-15-year-old female students (P = 0.004), as compared with matched controls. A significantly higher number of learning-disabled students were found to have "clinical anxiety" [24.64% vs. 4.35%, crude odds ratio (OR) = 7.19, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.91-17.78, P = 0.0001], as compared with the controls regardless of gender, age group, presence of comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or associated medical conditions. A significantly higher proportion of 8-11-year-old learning-disabled students, especially males, were found to have "clinical anxiety" as compared with 12-15-year-old learning-disabled students (crude OR = 4.38, 95% CI 1.94-9.92, P = 0.0004). Gender, presence of comorbid ADHD or associated medical conditions, and type of school attended or curriculum did not impact the prevalence of "clinical anxiety" in learning-disabled students., Interpretation and Conclusions: Students with newly diagnosed SpLD have greater odds of being "clinically anxious" relative to their regular peers. We recommend screening for anxiety in children with SpLD immediately after diagnosis so that their optimum rehabilitation can be facilitated.