Anxiety symptoms during childhood are more common than had previously thought and they represent a risk factor to develop anxiety disorders during the life. This article is part of a broader study on parenting styles and anxiety disorders ongoing in Albania in children/adolescents. The aim it is to describe sociodemografic factors of the study group, the frequency and characteristics of the predominant anxiety symptoms. Method: 50 consecutive children, who attended Tirana Child/Adolescent

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... atry Service, aged 8-20 years old (42% male), were assessed using self-report forms and were interviewed from a child/adolescent psychiatrist, during a three month period April -September 2011. Results: The mean age of the study group was 9.5 (SD = 4.436). More than one in four (26.41%) children resulted having higher scores than cut off, in all anxiety disorders. Significant differences were found in all dependent variables based on gender of the subjects, (P < .001), on age (P < .001) and correlation between different variables (P < .001). In terms of gender, the changes were significant in all subscales, with higher scores in girls than in boys (P < .001); the only exception was related to the symptoms of OCD, in which there weren't significant differences. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of early identification of anxiety symptoms in children, aiming early intervention and prevention of these disorders. 297 percentage of subjects from the sample who referred symptoms from each disorder; There were no missing data. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 17.0. Results The study showed that 42% (23) of the children were males and 58% (27) of them were females. The mean age of the study group was 9.5 (SD = 4.436), it varies from 5 to 20 years (Fig 1) . Most of them lived with both parents, so that 76.5% of children had married parents. The rest of the group lived with only one parent, where 14.2% were divorced parents and in 5.6% one of the parents had died or they lived separately. More than half (61.7%) of the participants came from families of middle socio-economic status, 21% came from families with high socio-economic status and 17.3% from families with low socio-economic status. Most common problems presented from parents or children/adolescents themselves, were those related to anxiety 13%, various somatic symptoms (8%), aggressive behavior (6.2%), movement disorders (6.2%), headaches (6.2%), back pain/chest pain (2.5%), vertigo (1.9%), weakness (1.9%) and abdominal pain (1.2%). The mos frequent diagnosis in the sample group, were: 36.7% of the study group, fullfilled criteria for Anxiety disorders, 30% Somatisation disorders, 22.2% Obsesive-Compulsive disorder (OCD), 11.1% Tourette syndrome. (Fig. 2) 28% of males and 72% of females were between 5-10 years old. 41% of males and 59% of females were between 11-15 years old. 32% of males and 68% of females were between 16-20 years old. (Fig. 3)