title: Benefits of child-focused anxiety treatments for parents and family functioning.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To examine (1) changes in parent (global psychological distress, trait anxiety) and family (dysfunction, burden) functioning following 12 weeks of child-focused anxiety treatment, and (2) whether changes in these parent and family factors were associated with child's treatment condition and response.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 488 youth ages 7-17 years (50% female; mean age 10.7 years) who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for social phobia, separation anxiety, and/or generalized anxiety disorder, and their parents. Youth were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of "Coping Cat" individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), medication management with sertraline (SRT), their combination (COMB), or medication management with pill placebo (PBO) within the multisite Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). At pre- and posttreatment, parents completed measures of trait anxiety, psychological distress, family functioning, and burden of child illness; children completed a measure of family functioning. Blinded independent evaluators rated child's response to treatment using the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement Scale at posttreatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analyses of covariance revealed that parental psychological distress and trait anxiety, and parent-reported family dysfunction improved only for parents of children who were rated as treatment responders, and these changes were unrelated to treatment condition. Family burden and child-reported family dysfunction improved significantly from pre- to posttreatment regardless of treatment condition or response.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Findings suggest that child-focused anxiety treatments, regardless of intervention condition, can result in improvements in nontargeted parent symptoms and family functioning particularly when children respond successfully to the treatment.
authors: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 550 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. ckeeton@jhmi.edu
authors: Courtney P
authors: CP
authors: Keeton
authors: Golda S
authors: GS
authors: Ginsburg
authors: Kelly L
authors: KL
authors: Drake
authors: Dara
authors: D
authors: Sakolsky
authors: Philip C
authors: PC
authors: Kendall
authors: Boris
authors: B
authors: Birmaher
authors: Anne Marie
authors: AM
authors: Albano
authors: John S
authors: JS
authors: March
authors: Moira
authors: M
authors: Rynn
authors: John
authors: J
authors: Piacentini
authors: John T
authors: JT
authors: Walkup
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D001010:Anxiety, Separation / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy / Q000379:methods; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000379:methods; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D020280:Sertraline / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors; D020280:Sertraline
keywords: child anxiety; cognitive-behavioral therapy; family functioning; family outcomes; parent anxiety; parent psychopathology; pharmacotherapy; randomized controlled trial; treatment
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