A preliminary examination of state and trait anxiety among Mandarin-speaking adults who stutter.

PURPOSE: The psychological impact of stuttering, such as anxiety in adults who stutter, is understudied in non-Western cultures. This study addresses this gap by performing a preliminary examination of anxiety in a group of Chinese adults who stutter. The aims of the study were to (a) compare state and trait anxiety between adults who stutter and adults who do not stutter, and (b) examine the cross-cultural consistency of the relationship between stuttering and anxiety.

METHOD: A total of 40 Mandarin-speaking adults who stutter and 40 age- and sex-matched Mandarin-speaking adults who do not stutter completed the Chinese version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Analyses included between-group and within-group t-tests, and cross-cultural comparisons between anxiety levels in Chinese adults who stutter and published Western data.

RESULT: The adults who stutter group reported significantly higher state and trait anxiety compared to the adults who do not stutter group. Comparison to published data from Western countries (USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel) indicated higher trait and state anxiety in the adults who stutter group, while the adults who do not stutter group comparisons were negligible.

CONCLUSION

Chinese adults who stutter exhibit significantly higher anxiety levels compared to both adults who do not stutter in China and adults who stutter in Western countries, a pattern potentially amplified by cultural mechanisms.