title: Pre-treatment child and family characteristics as predictors of outcome in cognitive behavioural therapy for youth anxiety disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been found to be effective for children and adolescents (6-18 years) with anxiety disorders, but the non-response rate is high-a fact that may argue for the importance of studies on pre-treatment characteristics of children and their families that predict treatment outcome.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To provide a systematic review of clinical and demographic pre-treatment child and family predictors of treatment outcome in CBT for anxiety disorders in youth.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic literature search was conducted based on electronic databases (PsycINFO, Embase and PubMed), and retrieved studies were analysed according to the box-score method of counting significant findings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  24 studies with a sample size ≥ 60 were located. Most studies dealt with the following predictors: child age, gender, comorbidity, symptom severity and parental psychopathology. There was some evidence that a higher degree of pre-treatment symptomatic severity and non-anxiety comorbidity predicted higher end-state severity, but not a lesser degree of improvement. There was some but inconsistent support for a negative influence of parental psychopathology.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Studies on pre-treatment child and family predictors of outcome in CBT for youth anxiety disorders have until now resulted in few findings of clinical or theoretical significance.
authors.affiliation: Irene Lundkvist-Houndoumadi, M.Sc., Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences , Aarhus University , Denmark.
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lundkvist-Houndoumadi
authors.forename: Esben
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hougaard
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thastum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Anxiety disorders; Cognitive behaviour therapy; Predictors; Treatment response; Youth