Recent achievements and adversities in anxious and depressed school age children.

Recent social achievements, friendship difficulties and life events were investigated for their relative effects on the probability of being a case of anxious or depressive emotional disorder. There are no significant differences between cases and controls for the presence of one or more recent social achievements. The probability of being a case is best predicted by a consideration of the independent effects of life events and the interactive (multiplicative) effects of the absence of recent social achievements with moderate to poor friendships. The absence of social achievements appears to exert significant risk for emotional disorder only in the presence of moderate to poor friendships. We have termed this an enhancing factor. There appears to be no greater probability of being anxious rather than depressed as a consequence of these factors or mechanisms occurring in the lives of school age children.