title: Evaluation of a preventive intervention for child anxiety in two randomized attention-control school trials.
abstract: The present research examined the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) based intervention program, FRIENDS, for children from grades 4 to 6, using random assignment at the school-level and an attention-control design in two longitudinal studies. The first study targeted children with anxiety symptoms (N=191, mean age=10.1) as screened with self, parent, and teacher-reports; the second study took a universal approach with full classrooms of children participating (N=253, mean age=9.8). The results showed no intervention effect in both studies, with children's anxiety symptoms decreasing over time regardless of whether they were in the story-reading (attention control) or FRIENDS condition. The findings also indicated that girls reported a higher level of anxiety than boys and children in higher grades reported lower anxiety relative to younger children in both studies. In addition, similar patterns were found using a subgroup of children with high-anxiety symptoms from both studies.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Dept of Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education, Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada. lynn.miller@ubc.ca
authors.forename: Lynn D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Aviva
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Laye-Gindhu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: John S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: March
authors.forename: Dana S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Thordarson
authors.forename: E Jane
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Garland
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012574:Schools; D012931:Social Environment; D016896:Treatment Outcome