The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 50 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Review: The association between anxiety and poor attendance at school – a systematic review
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Anxiety may be associated with poor attendance at school, which can lead to a range of adverse outcomes. We systematically reviewed the evidence for an association between anxiety and poor school attendance. METHODS: Seven electronic databases were searched for quantitative studies that reported an estimate of association between anxiety and school attendance. Anxiety had to be assessed via standardised diagnostic measure or validated scale. Articles were screened independently by two reviewers. Meta-analyses were performed where possible, otherwise results were synthesised narratively. RESULTS: A total of 4930 articles were screened. Eleven studies from six countries across North America, Europe and Asia, were included. School attendance was categorised into: (a) absenteeism (i.e. total absences), (b) excused/medical absences, (c) unexcused absences/truancy and (d) school refusal. Findings from eight studies suggested associations between truancy and any anxiety disorder, as well as social and generalised anxiety. Results also suggested cross-sectional associations between school refusal and separation, generalised and social anxiety disorders, as well as simple phobia. Few studies investigated associations with absenteeism or excused/medical absences. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest associations between anxiety and unexcused absences/truancy, and school refusal. Clinicians should consider the possibility of anxiety in children and adolescents with poor attendance. However, there is a lack of high quality evidence, little longitudinal research and limited evidence relating to overall absenteeism or excused/medical absences, despite the latter being the most common type of absence. These gaps should be a key priority for future research.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Indeed, anxiety-related school refusal may be viewed more sympathetically by school staff than truancy”
From Reconciling Contemporary Approaches to School Attendance and School Absenteeism: Toward Promotion and Nimble Response, Global Policy Review and Implementation, and Future Adaptability (Part 1) (2019) · cites this paper as Finning et al., 2019
In the citing paper
“their discourse reveals underlying pedagogical knowledge of the association between mental health and school attendance, as widely established in literature (e.g., Finning et al., 2019;Lereya et al., 2019).”
From Their voices matter: student and professional perspectives on overcoming school attendance problems in the context of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (2025) · cites this paper as Finning et al., 2019
In the citing paper
“Review-studies show that SAPs are closely linked to mental health difficulties and can be both a cause and a consequence of emotional and behavioral challenges”
From “So That You Can Feel Well”: Perspectives of Students with Social, Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties on Factors that Support School Attendance (2025) · cites this paper as Finning et al., 2019
In the citing paper
“The relationships between social anxiety and school absenteeism (SAB) remain fragmented [16,17].”
In the citing paper
“This gap persists amid inconsistencies in findings [16] and a lack of robust theoretical perspectives [18,19].”
Citations
Cites
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: the PRISMA statement
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., Altman, D. G., & for the PRISMA Group (2009) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.b2535 · Cited by 83,823
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., Altman, D. G., & The PRISMA Group (2009) · PLoS Medicine · doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 · Cited by 64,042
Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses
Higgins, J. P. T., Thompson, S. G., Deeks, J. J., & Altman, D. G. (2003) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7414.557 · Cited by 63,139
Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA Statement.
(2009) · PubMed Central · Cited by 44,859
Meta-analysis in clinical trials
DerSimonian, R., & Laird, N. (1986) · Controlled Clinical Trials · doi:10.1016/0197-2456(86)90046-2 · Cited by 39,552
(2014) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 17,633
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2009) · doi:10.1002/9780470743386 · Cited by 14,225
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2021) · doi:10.1002/9781119558378 · Cited by 9,799
Cohen, J. (1992) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037//0033-2909.112.1.155 · Cited by 8,771
Sterne, J. A. C., Sutton, A. J., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Terrin, N., Jones, D. R., Lau, J., Carpenter, J., Rucker, G., Harbord, R. M., Schmid, C. H., et al. (2011) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.d4002 · Cited by 7,709 · cited 1×
“The protocol also specified that funnel plots and Egger’s test would be used to assess publication bias, but there were too few studies for this (Sterne et al., 2011).”
Method
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- 10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155 · DOI · Paper page
- StataCorp., 2015, Stata statistical software: Release 14
- The Cochrane Collaboration, 2014, Review manager (RevMan) (Version 5.3)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kearney, C. A., Gonzálvez, C., Graczyk, P. A., & Fornander, M. J. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02222 · Cited by 130
John, A. M., Friedmann, Y., DelPozo‐Baños, M., Frizzati, A., Ford, T. J., & Thapar, A. (2021) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(21)00367-9 · Cited by 138
How to Understand School Refusal
Havik, T., & Ingul, J. M. (2021) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2021.715177 · Cited by 134
Finning, K., Ford, T. J., Moore, D. A., & Ukoumunne, O. C. (2019) · European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s00787-019-01342-4 · Cited by 102
Kearney, C. A., Dupont, R., Fensken, M., & Gonzálvez, C. (2023) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2023.1253595 · Cited by 71
Metadata
- Authors
- Finning, K., Ukoumunne, O. C., Ford, T., Danielson‐Waters, E., Shaw, L., Romero De Jager, I., Stentiford, L., & Moore, D. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- University of Bristol Medical School Bristol UK
- University of Exeter Medical School Exeter UK
- Corresponding author
- Finning, Katie
- Venue
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-02-27
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 205-216
- ISSN
- 1475-357X (ISSN-L)
- 1475-3588
- OpenAlex
- W2920440182
- Cited by
- 189
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7
- FWCI
- 4.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (104908/Z/14/Z)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › School Health and Nursing Education
- Keywords
- anxiety disorders, school attendance, school absenteeism, truancy, school refusal, social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety, phobia, children and adolescents
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
