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Living with anxiety can be a complex, biopsychosocial experience that is unique to each person and embedded in their contexts and lived worlds. Scales and questionnaires are necessary to quantify anxiety, yet these approaches are not always able to reflect the lived experience of psychological distress experienced by youth. Guided by hermeneutic phenomenology, our research aimed to amplify the voices of youth living with anxiety. Fifty-eight youth living with anxiety took part in in-depth, open-ended interviews and participatory arts-based methods (photovoice and ecomaps). Analysis was informed by van Manen's method of data analysis with attention to lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived relationships, as well as the meanings of living with anxiety. Youth relied on the following metaphors to describe their experiences: A shrinking world; The heavy, heavy backpack; Play, pause, rewind, forward; and A fine balance. Overall, youth described their anxiety as a monster, contributing to feelings of fear, loss, and pain, but also hope. The findings from this study can contribute to the reduction of barriers in knowledge translation by encouraging the use of narrative and visual metaphors as a communicative tool to convey youth's lived experience of anxiety to researchers, clinicians, and the public.

Background: Bullying is common in school age youth and more frequent for youth living with anxiety. Parents are in a unique position to contextualize and increase understanding of youth experiences. Objective: This study examined parents' perspectives on bullying experiences of youth with anxiety to deepen our understanding of the challenges faced by youth and families and to inform interventions and supports. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 54 parents/caregivers of youth aged 10-19 with an anxiety diagnosis. Participants were interviewed twice using semi-structured and open-ended questionnaires. Analysis was conducted using a hermeneutic phenomenology approach which privileges thick description and interpretation. Results: Four key themes emerged from the parent interviews: (1) The experiences of bullying and anxiety are intertwined and pervasive; (2) Bullying in youth with anxiety is difficult to recognize; (3) For youth with anxiety, bullying can make school very unsafe; and (4) Parents face multiple challenges approaching schools to address bullying. Conclusions: This study found that bullying involvement is common and more complex for youth living with anxiety; parents' lack of awareness impedes their ability to help youth; bullying at school can lead to worsening anxiety and school avoidance; and inadequate responses by schools further compounds the suffering faced by youth living with anxiety and their families.

Background: Findings reported in this article emerged from the study titled "Youth's Voices: Their Lives and Experiences of Living with an Anxiety Disorder." Though the initial focus of this study was not on the pain experiences of youth living with an anxiety disorder, it became apparent from the very first interviews that pain and suffering was key in the youth lived experience, permeating their everyday lives and impeding their participation and functioning in the world. Aims: The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which pain is a central experience for young people living with an anxiety disorder. Methods: The study was approached from the qualitative research design of hermeneutic phenomenology. Fifty-eight young people who were living with anxiety disorders and their parents participated in the study. Youth took part in multiple qualitative open-ended interviews and the participatory arts-based method of photovoice. Themes were developed using van Manen's method of data analysis. Results: The overall theme emerged as "anxiety is very much about pain." The four subthemes are (1) embodied experience of anxiety: physical pain; (2) a prominent symptom of anxiety: mental–emotional pain; (3) difficult interpersonal relationships: social pain; and (4) articulating their pain. Conclusions: Use of qualitative, arts-based methodologies provided the opportunity and space for youth with anxiety to articulate their multifaceted experience with pain in their own words. This work reinforces the need for use of qualitative approaches to understanding pain experiences in young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety disorders typically emerge in childhood and, if left untreated, can lead to poor health and social outcomes into adulthood. Stigma contributes to the burden of mental illness in youth. Mental health stigma has been conceptualized as a wicked problem and efforts to address this complexity require a greater understanding of how stigma operates in the lives of youth. Fifty-eight youth in Manitoba, Canada aged 10 to 22 years and living with anxiety took part in the study. Data collection involved in-depth interviews and arts-based methodologies. Youth living with anxiety faced stigma at three levels: (a) interpersonal, (b) intrapersonal, and (c) structural. Stigma held by others, internalized by youth and embedded in social institutions led to compromised relationships with family and peers, low self-esteem and self-efficacy, reduced help-seeking, and discrimination in school, workplace and health care settings. Implications and potential strategies for addressing these levels of stigma are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]