Impact of anxiety on stuttering: Neurobehavioral aspects

Purpose: To investigate the impact of anxiety related stuttering and severity of stuttering related to neurobehavioral changes including demographics of the people who stutter. Materials and Method: A case-control observational study was conducted and data were collected from the subjects by data collection form for stuttering and an anxiety scale by taking an interview regarding his/her stutter and was analyzed in SPSS Ver. 20. Result: A total of 180 subjects were included in the study and were divided into three groups that is stuttering with anxiety, stuttering alone and control group. The results of the present study revealed a significant difference between people who stuttered and people who did not stutter on measures of anxiety. Anxiety had a direct impact on stuttering subjects when the stuttering parameters were taken into consideration. The severity of stuttering was associated with the degree of anxiety. The results of the present study also revealed that there is a significant relationship between anxiety and the neurobehavioral changes in stuttering subjects. Conclusion: A wide variability of scores on the Hamilton scale of Anxiety and the data collection form for stuttering suggests that the levels of anxiety were individualized and there was a sub-group of stuttering subjects who had little or no impact of anxiety on their stutter. The hypotheses were supported by statistical analysis. Keywords: Stuttering, anxiety, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, Neurobehavioral changes