Search

Background: Children and adolescents demonstrate diverse patterns of symptom change and disorder remission following cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders. To better understand children who respond sub‐optimally to CBT, this study investigated youths (N = 1,483) who continued to meet criteria for one or more clinical anxiety diagnosis immediately following treatment or at any point during the 12 months following treatment. Methods: Data were collected from 10 clinical sites with assessments at pre‐and post‐treatment and at least once more at 3, 6 or 12‐month follow‐up. Participants were assigned to one of three groups based on diagnostic status for youths who: (a) retained an anxiety diagnosis from post to end point (minimal responders); (b) remitted anxiety diagnoses at post but relapsed by end point (relapsed responders); and (c) retained a diagnosis at post but remitted to be diagnosis free at end point (delayed responders). Growth curve models assessed patterns of change over time for the three groups and examined predictors associated with these patterns including demographic, clinical and parental factors, as well as treatment factors. Results: Higher primary disorder severity, being older, having a greater number of anxiety disorders, having social anxiety disorder, as well as higher maternal psychopathology differentiated the minimal responders from the delayed and relapsed responders at the baseline. Results from the growth curve models showed that severity of the primary disorder and treatment modality differentiated patterns of linear change only. Higher severity was associated with significantly less improvement over time for the minimal and relapsed response groups, as was receiving group CBT, when compared to the delayed response group. Conclusions: Sub‐optimal response patterns can be partially differentiated using variables assessed at pre‐treatment. Increased understanding of different patterns of change following treatment may provide direction for clinical decision‐making and for tailoring treatments to specific groups of clinically anxious youth. Future research may benefit from assessing progress during treatment to detect emerging response patterns earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Brief guided parent-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy ( CBT) has been developed to meet the demand for non-intensive interventions for children with anxiety disorders, and initial trials have shown it to be effective for children with a range of anxiety disorders. This study examined outcomes 3-5 years post-treatment. Design A long-term follow-up (LTFU) cohort study. Methods Families who (1) completed at least 50% of allocated treatment sessions of guided parent-delivered CBT for childhood anxiety as part of a randomized control trial (RCT), (2) provided consent to be recontacted, (3) had not received further mental health interventions, and (4) were contactable were invited to take part. Fifty-seven families (29% of the original sample) completed structured diagnostic interviews on average 50 months after treatment (39-61 months). Results At LTFU, 79% of the assessed children who had received the treatment no longer met criteria for their primary diagnosis, 63% did not meet criteria for any anxiety disorder, and 61% did not meet criteria for any DSM- IV disorder. Treatment gains were mostly maintained (60%), and some children went on to recover during the follow-up period without additional input from mental health services (19%). Few young people had relapsed since their last assessment (12%). Mean scores on standardized symptom questionnaires were within the normal range. Conclusions Children who recovered from anxiety disorders following brief guided parent-delivered CBT typically maintained good outcomes and few relapsed. These findings suggest that this is a viable first-line, low-intensity treatment approach. This study only included a small subsample of those in the original RCT (29%), and more information is required about those who dropped out of treatment and those who required further intervention immediately after treatment. Practitioner points Treatment gains from brief guided parent-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy for children with anxiety are maintained for most children 3-5 years later., The majority of children who completed at least 50% of the intervention required no further mental health intervention in that time., Some children make continued improvement after completing the intervention., Data are based on a sample of families from southern England where the primary caregiving parent was free of mental health difficulties., Further research is needed to explore the mental health needs of those who do not benefit from this intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]