School anxiety at 13 linked to memory complaints in older age
An observational cohort study of 625 adults in Sweden linked anxiety at school in adolescence to self-reported forgetting almost six decades later.
Our read
Populations- Studied:
- Cohort study of 625 adults followed from childhood in Sweden, almost six decades
- What changed:
- More school anxiety at age 13 was linked to more memory complaints at age 67
- The catch:
- Participants with poorer childhood psychological health disproportionately dropped out, potentially exaggerating the association
- Why it’s aging research:
- It measures an outcome that worsens with age.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
An observational cohort study in Örebro, Sweden, included 625 adults—349 women and 276 men—at its 2022 follow-up, most aged 67. Researchers analyzed tests and questionnaires collected at ages 10 and 13 alongside a later questionnaire about everyday forgetting.
More school anxiety at 13 was linked to more self-reported forgetting at 67. The association remained when researchers separately accounted for current anxiety and depressive symptoms. The analysis did not provide sufficient support for links with social well-being, family social and economic circumstances, thinking abilities or school performance at 13. An additional analysis linked school anxiety at 13 and current anxiety symptoms to memory complaints independently of each other. It did not support an additional link with school anxiety at 10.
Why it matters
Self-reported memory problems are common in older age and have been linked to cognitive decline and dementia. Their early-life associations may offer clues about the origins of later-life memory complaints.
Caveats
The outcome was self-reported forgetting, not measured memory decline, and the observational design cannot establish cause and effect. Participants came from one Swedish city; those who dropped out had poorer childhood psychological health and were more often male.
From the paper
- Result
There were autoregressive stability found between age 10 and 13 for school anxiety (B = 0.55, 95% CI [0.26, 0.85], β = 0.43), social well-being (B = 0.37, 95% CI [0.14, 0.60], β = 0.30), SES (B = 0.50, 95% CI [0.42, 0.57], β = 0.50), cognitive ability (B = 0.79, 95% CI [0.69, 0.87], β = 0.94) …
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
The paper
Örebro University; Stockholm University
The Journals of Gerontology, Series B, Aug 27, 2026, Open access
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