Parental anxiety in the treatment of childhood anxiety: A different story three years later

This study reports on the results of a long-term follow-up of 60 (29 girls and 31 boys, all of Caucasian ethnicity) children and adolescents diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and treated 3 years earlier with child-focused cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or child-focused CBT plus parental anxiety management (PAM). Sixty-seven children aged 7 to -14 years were assigned to either the "child anxiety only" or the "child + parental anxiety" condition based on parents' trait anxiety scores. Within conditions, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment conditions. Results indicated that at follow-up, parental anxiety did not represent a risk factor for children's treatment outcome. In addition at follow-up, children who received the combined CBT + PAM intervention (regardless of parental anxiety status) were significantly more likely to be anxiety diagnosis free compared with children who received the child-focused CBT intervention only.