Are Anxiety Problems Less Impairing than Other Psychological Problems in Emerging Adults? Associations with Quality of Life and Parental Psychopathology

The current study aimed to better understand which psychological problems are most impairing, as measured by quality of life and perceived parental psychopathology associations among emerging adults. Participants included 602 college-attending emerging adults who were recruited through an online participant pool at a large Southern United States university. Participants completed measures about quality of life, parental psychological problems, and personal psychological problems. Results indicated that when compared to emerging adults not at-risk for psychological problems, emerging adults at-risk for anxiety problems reported lower psychological, social, and total quality of life and higher levels of parental psychopathology across all domains. Additionally, emerging adults at-risk for anxiety problems reported better physical quality of life than emerging adults at-risk for any other psychological problem and remarkably lower parental psychopathology than emerging adults at-risk for antisocial problems and autism problems. The current study identified the most impairing self-reported psychological problems in emerging adults by assessing quality of life differences.