Cognitive-behavioural therapy for anxiety disordered children in a clinical setting: Does additional cognitive parent training enhance treatment effectiveness?

The effectiveness of a treatment protocol with individual CBT for children with anxiety disorders was evaluated in a clinical setting, i.e. an outpatient clinic for child and adolescent psychiatry. In addition, the surplus value of a cognitive parent-training programme above the individual CBT was determined. Eighteen children with anxiety disorders were treated at an outpatient clinic for child and adolescent psychiatry. All children received 12 weekly sessions of individual cognitive behaviour therapy and all parents had two sessions in which the treatment method was explained. In addition, the families were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: (1) no extra treatment, or (2) additional cognitive training for the parents, consisting of seven sessions, parallel to the individual treatment of the child. Results were studied at post-treatment, at 3-months follow-up, and at 15 months follow-up. Both child and parent reports showed significant decline of anxiety of the child, reaching the level of normal controls at 3 months follow-up. According to parent reports, many children improved between the post-test and the 3-month follow-up. Additional cognitive parent training did not add to the results of individual cognitive behaviour therapy for the children. At 15 months follow-up, data for the total group revealed a general increase in anxiety reports in child reports but not in parent reports, compared with the three months follow-up. Five children showed severe psychopathology, whereas the other 12 children reported no anxiety disorders and high levels of general functioning. Again, no differences between the treatment conditions were found. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.