Investigation of the relationship between social foby levels in students and parents

The aim of the study is to investigate the frequency of social phobia in the students and their parents and to examine the relationship between them. The study which was designed as a cross-sectional study, was conducted between April 2018 and May 2018 in 4 middle schools and 8 high schools which were randomly selected in the central districts of Adana in the 2017-2018 academic year. A total of 368 students, 178 of whom were female and 190 were male, were enrolled in the 8th, 10th and 10th grades of secondary schools. Individual information form, sociodemographic variables prepared by the researcher and liebowitz social anxiety scale were used as data collection tools. The prevalence of obvious social phobia is high in both children (17,1%) and parents(13,6%). There was a moderate correlation between parental social phobia score and child social phobia score (r=0.59, p<0.0001). Social phobia score was found to have a significant difference according to age, gender, academic achievement status and parents' education level and family structure. Findings from this study indicate that there is a moderate relationship between social phobia levels of children and parents, and that social phobia is transferred to children by the family. In our country where family ties are strong, it is thought that children develop social attitude similar to their parents. These findings indicate that it is appropriate to treat children or adults individually in the field of psychology while treating children with social phobia, as well as family treatment.