Predicting remission following CBT for childhood anxiety disorders: a machine learning approach.

Background: The identification of predictors of treatment response is crucial for improving treatment outcome for children with anxiety disorders. Machine learning methods provide opportunities to identify combinations of factors that contribute to risk prediction models.

Methods: A machine learning approach was applied to predict anxiety disorder remission in a large sample of 2114 anxious youth (5-18 years).

Testing theoretical processes that maintain paediatric social anxiety: A comparison between children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder, other mental disorders, and non-clinical controls.

Background: Paediatric social anxiety disorder (SoAD) responds poorly to treatment. Improved understanding of potential psychological maintaining processes may indicate fruitful directions to improve treatment outcomes. The current study compared self-reported psychological processes and state anxiety in response to two social tasks experienced by children and adolescents with SoAD against comparison samples.

The psychometric properties of the Mini Social Phobia Inventory in a treatment seeking sample of children and their caregivers.

The Mini Social Phobia Inventory (Mini-SPIN) is a short 3-item measure of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Using existing data, the current study examined the psychometric properties of the Mini-SPIN using a large, treatment seeking sample of children aged 6-16 years with data available for youth ( = 695, 170) and their caregivers ( = 703, 177) at pre-treatment and follow-up, respectively. The ability of the Mini-SPIN to discriminate between those with and without SAD was examined at pre-treatment and 6-month follow-up, across caregiver and child report.

Editorial Perspective: Extending IPDMA methodology to drive treatment personalisation in child mental health.

To improve outcomes for youth who do not respond optimally to existing treatments, we need to identify robust predictors, moderators, and mediators that are ideal targets for personalisation in mental health care. We propose a solution to leverage the Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis (IPDMA) approach to allow broader access to individual-level data while maintaining methodological rigour. Such a resource has the potential to answer questions that are unable to be addressed by single studies, reduce researcher burden, and enable the application of newer statistical techniques, all to provide data-driven strategies for clinical decision-making.

Psychometric properties of the Child Anxiety and Depression Life Interference Scale - Young Adult version.

Objectives: A life interference measure specifically designed for young adults with anxiety and depressive symptoms does not currently exist. This paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of a brief self-report measure of life interference associated with young adult anxiety and depression, the Child Anxiety and Depression Life Interference Scale - Young Adult version (CADLIS-YA).

Design: Cross-sectional, correlational and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

Patterns of sub-optimal change following CBT for childhood anxiety.

Background: Children and adolescents demonstrate diverse patterns of symptom change and disorder remission following cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders. To better understand children who respond sub-optimally to CBT, this study investigated youths (N = 1,483) who continued to meet criteria for one or more clinical anxiety diagnosis immediately following treatment or at any point during the 12 months following treatment.

Methods: Data were collected from 10 clinical sites with assessments at pre-and post-treatment and at least once more at 3, 6 or 12-month follow-up.

Web-based intervention for young adults experiencing anxiety and hazardous alcohol use: Study protocol for an 18-month randomized controlled trial.

Background And Aims: Alcohol use and anxiety often co-occur, causing increased severity impairment. This protocol describes a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that aims to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a web-based, self-guided alcohol and anxiety-focused program, compared with a web-based brief alcohol-focused program, for young adults who drink at hazardous levels and experience anxiety. It will also test moderators and mechanisms of change underlying the intervention effects.

Cognitive bias modification of interpretations for anxiety and depression in children and adolescents: A meta-analysis.

Background: Evidence suggests that cognitive bias modification of interpretations (CBM-I) is effective in modifying interpretation biases and has a small effect on reducing anxiety in children and adolescents. However, most evidence to date is based on studies which report anxiety or general distress using Likert-type or Visual Analogue Scales, which are useful but do not reliably index symptoms of clinical importance. This meta-analysis aimed to establish the effects of CBM-I for children and adolescents on both anxiety and depression using psychometrically validated symptom measures, as well as state negative affect and negative and positive interpretation bias.

Treating child anxiety using family-based internet delivered cognitive behavior therapy with brief therapist guidance: A randomized controlled trial.

Online treatment delivery has the potential to increase access to evidence-based mental health care for children with anxiety disorders. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we evaluated the efficacy of Cool Kids Online, a family-based and therapist supported internet-delivered cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) designed to target anxiety disorders in children. Ninety-five children aged 7-12 years with a DSM-5 anxiety disorder were randomly allocated to Cool Kids Online or a waitlist control.

Poly-victimization of autistic adults: An investigation of individual-level correlates.

Autistic people experience high rates of violence and victimization which is largely due to structural injustices, including stigma and social attitudes. Identifying and addressing systemic and structural factors is vitally important, however effecting change in embedded social structures is likely to take some time, even with concerted efforts. In the meantime, it is important to understand whether there are other individual-level factors that may assist in developing preventative and protective strategies for autistic people.

Estimated Prevalence of Depressive Disorders in Children From 2004 to 2019: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Importance: Depression during childhood (ie, age <13 years) poses a major health burden. Recent changes in environmental and lifestyle factors may increase children's risk of mental health problems. This has been reported for anxiety disorders, but it is unclear whether this occurs for depressive disorders.

Interventions for Young Children's Mental Health: A Review of Reviews.

To determine the efficacy of intervention programs for young children (4-9 years) with emerging mental health needs, we conducted a review of meta-analytic and systematic reviews of the intervention literature. Of 41,061 abstracts identified and 15,076 screened, 152 review articles met the inclusion criteria. We reviewed interventions across multiple disciplines targeting: (1) general mental health concerns; (2) internalizing symptoms; (3) externalizing symptoms; (4) anxiety; (5) depression; (6) trauma; (7) symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; and (8) mental health concerns associated with autism spectrum disorder.

Randomised controlled trial of cultural-adapted and programme-adopted cognitive behavioural therapy for children and adolescents' anxiety in Japan: protocol for a Multi-, Inter-, and Cross-cultural Clinical Child Study (MIXCS).

Introduction: The primary objective of the Multi-, Inter-, and Cross-cultural Clinical Child Study (MIXCS) is to evaluate the hypothesis that the effects of cultural-adapted cognitive behavioural therapy (CA-CBT) and programme-adopted cognitive behavioural therapy (PA-CBT) for children and adolescents' anxiety are both superior to a psychological control (moral education control: MEC) for reducing child and adolescent anxiety disorders and symptoms as well as related constructs. The secondary objective is to explore commonalities and differences in therapy factors between CA-CBT and PA-CBT.

Method And Analysis: The study has been designed as a randomised, controlled and assessor masked multicentre superiority trial with three groups: CA-CBT, PA-CBT and MEC.

Comparison of Transdiagnostic Treatment and Specialized Social Anxiety Treatment for Children and Adolescents With Social Anxiety Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: Pediatric social anxiety disorder consistently shows the poorest treatment response of all anxiety disorders. The current study compared a generic cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment for pediatric anxiety against a modified (social anxiety) treatment that incorporated specific components to target theoretically important maintaining processes.

Method: A total of 200 children and adolescents (mean age = 9.

Facing Uncertainty: Interpretation of Ambiguous Emotional Faces in Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder.

Objective: The current study examined whether children with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) demonstrate divergent facial emotion processing and a disorder-specific negative interpretation bias in the processing of facial emotional expressions. This study aimed to overcome previous study limitations by including both a nonsocially anxious control group and a healthy control group to examine whether childhood SAD is characterized by a general emotion labeling deficit, and/or by a negative interpretation bias, indicated by systematic misclassifications, or a lower threshold for recognizing threatening emotions.

Method: Participants were 132 children aged 7-12 years (= 9.

A scoping review investigating the use of exposure for the treatment and targeted prevention of anxiety and related disorders in young people.

Background: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the gold standard intervention for anxiety and related mental health disorders among young people; however, the efficacy of individual elements of CBT (e.g., exposure to feared stimuli) have received little scrutiny.

Increasing the Efficacy of Treatment for Socially Anxious Youth Through Theoretically Derived Improvements: A Pilot Study.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is the first line of treatment for social anxiety disorder; however, children with social anxiety disorder do not respond as well to generic cognitive behavioural therapy programs, compared to children with other anxiety disorders. The aim of the study was to provide a preliminary examination of the efficacy and applicability of a new disorder specific intervention for children with social anxiety disorder. Five children aged 7-13 years, with a primary or secondary DSM-5 diagnosis of social anxiety disorder were provided with an adapted version of the Cool Kids anxiety program.

Mental health symptoms in children and adolescents during COVID-19 in Australia.

Objective: COVID-19 has led to disruptions to the lives of Australian families through social distancing, school closures, a temporary move to home-based online learning, and effective lockdown. Understanding the effects on child and adolescent mental health is important to inform policies to support communities as they continue to face the pandemic and future crises. This paper sought to report on mental health symptoms in Australian children and adolescents during the initial stages of the pandemic (May to November 2020) and to examine their association with child/family characteristics and exposure to the broad COVID-19 environment.

The efficacy of interventions for behaviourally inhibited preschool-aged children: A meta-analysis.

The current systematic review and meta-analyses examined the efficacy of psychological interventions targeting behavioural inhibition and anxiety in preschool-aged children, evaluated within randomised controlled trials. Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and CINAHL were systematically searched from inception to March 2021. Ten studies (N = 1475 children, aged 3 - 7 years) were included in the current review.

Efficacy of D-cycloserine augmented brief intensive cognitive-behavioural therapy for paediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: A randomised clinical trial.

Objective: To examine the efficacy of weight-adjusted D-cycloserine (DCS) (35 or 70 mg) relative to placebo augmentation of intensive exposure therapy for youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in a double-blind, randomised controlled trial, and examine whether antidepressant medication or patient age moderated outcomes.

Methods: Youth (n = 100, 7-17 years) with OCD were randomised in a 1:1 ratio to either DCS + exposure (n = 49) or placebo + exposure (n = 51). Assessments occurred posttreatment, 1 month later, and at 3 and 6 months.

Receipt of evidence-based care for children and adolescents with anxiety in Australia.

Objective: Cognitive-behavioural therapy is recommended as the first-line treatment for children and adolescents with anxiety. Despite its efficacy, a recent United Kingdom study indicated that few children with anxiety disorders receive cognitive-behavioural therapy. The primary aim of this study was to examine the receipt of cognitive-behavioural therapy for children and adolescents with elevated anxiety symptoms in Australia.

A Comparison of Interactions Among Children, Parents, and Therapists in Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Anxiety Disorders in Australia and Japan.

Despite growing attention to the efficacy of culturally adapted cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) programs for children and adolescents, there is still little empirical and practical information available to therapists who adapt original treatment protocols to suit clients of a specific culture. The current study aimed to compare therapeutic interactions across CBT treatment delivered with two different cultural groups. We developed an observational coding system to examine behaviors exhibited by child, parent, and therapist during CBT sessions conducted in Australia and Japan for children with anxiety disorders.