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Background: Children with a social anxiety disorder have worse treatment outcomes after Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) than children with other anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders and mood disorders are strongly related and especially social anxiety is related to high comorbidity rates with mood disorders. The aim of the study was to investigate how comorbid mood disorders are related to treatment outcomes after CBT and whether this can explain the worse outcomes for childhood social anxiety. Methods: Participants were 152 referred clinically children (7–18 years) with either a social anxiety disorder (n = 52) or another anxiety disorder (n = 100) of whom 24.3% (n = 37) had a comorbid mood disorder. Child anxiety, internalizing symptoms, and quality of life were measured pre-treatment, post-treatment, 3 months and 1 year after treatment, using child and both parents' report. Results: Children with a primary social anxiety disorder more often had a comorbid mood disorder than children with another primary anxiety disorder. Children with a mood disorder had more severe anxiety problems before treatment. Comorbid mood disorders were related to greater anxiety reductions after treatment. The worse outcomes for children with a primary social anxiety disorder remained after controlling for comorbid mood disorders. Conclusions: Findings stress the importance of future studies examining why the presence of a comorbid mood disorder is associated with greater anxiety reductions, and other factors that explain the worse treatment outcomes found for childhood social anxiety disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of social anxiety with self-perceived and peer-reported likability, while controlling for the possible influence of depression. In total, 586 children (7 to 13 years) completed questionnaires to measure social anxiety, self-assessed likability, and depression. Peer-reported likability was derived from sociometric data on likability. As expected, children with higher self-reported social anxiety perceived themselves as less liked by classroom peers than children with lower self-reported social anxiety. In reality, children with higher levels of social anxiety were more liked by peers than children with lower levels of social anxiety. Multilinear regression analyses indicated no confounding effect of depression: Social anxiety, but not depression, was a significant predictor of biased perceived likability. Correcting the discrepancy between objective versus subjective likability may be a crucial target in the prevention and treatment of social anxiety disorders in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]