Therapeutic Alliance, Attendance, and Outcomes in Youths Receiving CBT or Client-Centered Therapy for Anxiety.

Objective: Positive associations between therapeutic alliance and outcome (e.g. youth symptom severity) have been documented in the youth anxiety literature; however, little is known about the conditions under which early alliance contributes to positive outcomes in youth.

Error-related brain activity in pediatric anxiety disorders remains elevated following individual therapy: a randomized clinical trial.

Background: Anxiety disorders are associated with an overactive action monitoring system as indexed by a larger error-related negativity (ERN). This study tests whether ERN magnitude changes following treatment, predicts response to treatment, and varies by treatment type.

Methods: The sample included 130 youth (9-14 years): youth with an anxiety disorder (ANX; n = 100) and healthy control (HC; n = 30) youth with no lifetime DSM-IV disorders.

Placebo Response in Pediatric Anxiety Disorders: Results from the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to identify predictors of pill placebo response and to characterize the temporal course of pill placebo response in anxious youth.

Methods: Data from placebo-treated patients (N = 76) in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS), a multisite, randomized controlled trial that examined the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy, sertraline, their combination, and placebo for the treatment of separation, generalized, and social anxiety disorders, were evaluated. Multiple linear regression models identified features associated with placebo response and models were confirmed with leave-one-out cross-validation.

Parental psychopathology and treatment outcome for anxious youth: roles of family functioning and caregiver strain.

Objective: Research has examined the effects of parental psychopathology, family functioning, and caregiver strain on treatment response in anxious youths. Although these variables have shown individual links to youth treatment response, theoretical models for their combined effects remain unexplored. This study tested the hypothesis that improvements in family functioning and reductions in caregiver strain explained the effects of parental psychopathology on youth treatment outcome in an anxiety treatment trial.

24- and 36-week outcomes for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS).

Objective: We report active treatment group differences on response and remission rates and changes in anxiety severity at weeks 24 and 36 for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS).

Method: CAMS youth (N = 488; 74% ≤ 12 years of age) with DSM-IV separation, generalized, or social anxiety disorder were randomized to 12 weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), sertraline (SRT), CBT+SRT (COMB), or medication management/pill placebo (PBO). Responders attended 6 monthly booster sessions in their assigned treatment arm; youth in COMB and SRT continued on their medication throughout this period.

Predictors and moderators of treatment response in childhood anxiety disorders: results from the CAMS trial.

Objective: We sought to examine predictors and moderators of treatment outcomes among 488 youths ages 7-17 years (50% female; 74% ≤ 12 years) meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder who were randomly assigned to receive either cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), sertraline (SRT), their combination (COMB), or medication management with pill placebo (PBO) in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS).

Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS): rationale, design, and methods.

Objective: To present the design, methods, and rationale of the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS), a recently completed federally-funded, multi-site, randomized placebo-controlled trial that examined the relative efficacy of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), sertraline (SRT), and their combination (COMB) against pill placebo (PBO) for the treatment of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and social phobia (SoP) in children and adolescents.

Methods: Following a brief review of the acute outcomes of the CAMS trial, as well as the psychosocial and pharmacologic treatment literature for pediatric anxiety disorders, the design and methods of the CAMS trial are described.

Results: CAMS was a six-year, six-site, randomized controlled trial.