title: Parent-youth informant disagreement: Implications for youth anxiety treatment.
abstract: Greater parent-youth disagreement on youth symptomatology is associated with a host of factors (e.g., parental psychopathology, family functioning) that might impede treatment. Parent-youth disagreement may represent an indicator of treatment prognosis. Using data from the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study, this study used polynomial regression and longitudinal growth modeling to examine whether parent-youth agreement prior to and throughout treatment predicted treatment outcomes (anxiety severity, youth functioning, responder status, and diagnostic remission, rated by an independent evaluator). When parents reported more symptoms than youth prior to treatment, youth were less likely to be diagnosis-free post-treatment; this was only true if the youth received cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) alone, not if youth received medication, combination, or placebo treatment. Increasing concordance between parents and youth over the course of treatment was associated with better treatment outcomes across all outcome measures ( ps < .001). How parents and youth "co-report" appears to be an indicator of CBT outcome. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, University of Miami, USA.|2 Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Emily M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Becker-Haimes
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, University of Miami, USA.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jensen-Doss
authors.affiliation: 3 Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, USA.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Birmaher
authors.affiliation: 4 Department of Psychology, Temple University, USA.
authors.forename: Philip C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Kendall
authors.affiliation: 5 Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut Health Center, USA.
authors.forename: Golda S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Ginsburg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D014151:Anti-Anxiety Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D014151:Anti-Anxiety Agents
keywords: Informant discrepancies; outcome monitoring; treatment; youth anxiety