Volume 48, Issue 5 , Pages 533-544, May 2009
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Versus an Active Control for Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders: A Randomized Trial
Abstract
Objectives
The current trial examined whether a specific cognitive-behavioral treatment package was more efficacious in treating childhood anxiety disorders than a nonspecific support package.
Method
One hundred twelve children (aged 7-16 years) with a principal anxiety disorder were randomly allocated to either a group cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) program or a control condition (group support and attention [GSA]).
Results
Overall, results showed that CBT was significantly more efficacious compared with the GSA condition: 68.6% of children in the CBT condition did not meet diagnostic criteria for their principal anxiety diagnosis at 6-month follow-up compared with 45.5% of the children in the GSA condition. The results of the child- and parent-completed measures indicated that, although mothers of CBT children reported significantly greater treatment gains than mothers of GSA children, children reported similar improvements across conditions.
Conclusions
Specific delivery of cognitive-behavioral skills is more efficacious in the treatment of childhood anxiety than a treatment that includes only nonspecific therapy factors.
Key Words: child anxiety , CBT , treatment
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The authors are with the Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University.The research was supported by a Macquarie University internal grant.The authors thank Dr. Alan Taylor for assisting with the statistical analyses. The authors also thank the staff and therapists at the Macquarie University Anxiety Research Unit in collecting these data, including Jonathon Gaston, Joel Roast, Leigh Carpenter, Josephine Farrell, Lee Taylor, Jacqueline Frei, and Danielle Ellis.Clinical trial registration information—Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR). URL: http://www.ANZCTR.org.au/ACTRN12608000522314.aspx. Unique identifier: ACTRN12608000522314.
PII: S0890-8567(09)60070-8
doi:10.1097/CHI.0b013e31819c2401
© 2009 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Volume 48, Issue 5 , Pages 533-544, May 2009
