Systematic review of the efficacy of cognitive behaviour therapies for childhood and adolescent anxiety disorders.
OBJECTIVE
To review the effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) as a treatment for anxiety disorders of childhood and adolescence.


METHODS
Studies were included if they treated young people (under 19 yrs) with diagnosed anxiety disorder (excluding trials solely treating phobia, PTSD or OCD), had a no-treatment control group, and used diagnosis as an outcome variable. A search of the literature, incorporating electronic databases, hand search and expert consultation, yielded 10 randomized controlled trials that were appropriate for inclusion.


RESULTS
The outcome of interest was remission of anxiety disorder. Employing conservative criteria, the remission rate in the CBT groups (56.5%) was higher than that in the control groups (34.8%). The pooled odds ratio was 3.3 (CI = 1.9-5.6), suggesting that CBT has a significant effect.


CONCLUSIONS
CBT is useful for the treatment of anxiety in children over the age of 6 years. However, we still know little about the treatment of younger children or about the comparative efficacy of alternative treatments. Most of the trials were efficacy trials, and have limited generalizability. Reporting of many aspects of the trials was weak.
Cartwright-Hatton
Sam
S
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Manchester, UK.
Roberts
Chris
C
Chitsabesan
Prathiba
P
Fothergill
Claire
C
Harrington
Richard
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000296:Adolescent Psychiatry; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002665:Child Psychiatry; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome