Treatment of Child Anxiety Disorder in the Context of Maternal Anxiety: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Anxiety disorders ? such as extreme social fears, excessive worrying, and marked fears about being separated from a parent - are the most common form of emotional problem in children. These disorders have a significant adverse impact on children?s social and emotional functioning and they commonly continue into adulthood. A form of treatment called ?cognitive behaviour therapy? (or CBT), which has been shown to be particularly effective in the treatment of anxiety disorders in adults, has recently been shown to also be helpful to anxious children, although not all children respond. There has been little careful study into the factors responsible for why some anxious children respond to CBT and others do not, although two related factors are likely to be important: the presence of anxiety in the mother, and difficulties in the relationship between the mother and child. A careful scientific study is to be conducted in which anxious children receive standard CBT as well as one of two other ingredients: treatment of the mother?s anxiety, and measures to improve the quality of the mother-child relationship. The children?s anxiety will be measured before the treatment and at various stages after treatment has begun, including a follow?up of how they are doing one year after the treatment has ended. The study will reveal whether these new ways of treating anxious children who have anxious mothers are an improvement on how they fare with standard CBT. It will also tell us how important it is to anxious children?s development that anxious mothers tackle their own problems, and how important it is that there are changes to the mother child relationship.