Browsing by Subject "Anxiety treatment"
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Item The relation between comorbid anxiety and treatment outcome in depressed early adolescent girls(2009-08) Hamilton, Amy Melissa; Stark, Kevin DouglasPrevious research has suggested that depressive disorders are common in youth and are associated with many negative outcomes. As a result, understanding how to treat depression effectively is very important. It is unclear; however, what factors predict treatment success or failure for depressed youth. Researchers are starting to investigate whether comorbid anxiety is a possible moderator of treatment outcome for youth with depression. Studies of the relation between comorbid anxiety and treatment outcome have produced mixed findings and have almost exclusively focused on older depressed adolescents. There is also limited research exploring whether parent intervention moderates the effect of comorbid anxiety on treatment outcome in depressed youth. This study focused on investigating the relation between comorbid anxiety and treatment outcome in a sample of 84 depressed female early adolescents who received either group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or group CBT plus a parent intervention. The addition of parent intervention was explored as a moderator of the relation between anxiety and treatment outcome. Treatment outcome was measured by changes in depression severity and global functioning during treatment. The depression severity and global functioning scores of depressed girls with comorbid anxiety were also compared to depressed girls without comorbid anxiety prior to treatment to determine whether the first group of girls entered treatment with a different level of psychopathology. Participants and their primary caregivers were administered a semi-structured diagnostic interview which was used as a measure of depression severity, global functioning, anxiety severity, and to determine whether participants met diagnostic criteria for depressive and anxiety diagnoses. The results of this study suggested that depressed youth with comorbid anxiety or higher anxiety severity started out treatment with higher depression severity and lower functioning. Results also suggested that comorbid anxiety was not related to negative treatment outcome and that youth with comorbid anxiety actually experienced larger reductions in depression severity over the course of treatment than youth without comorbid anxiety. Parent intervention did not significantly moderate the effect of comorbid anxiety on treatment outcome. The study’s limitations, implications of the results, and recommendations for future research were discussed.Item Understanding participants’ perspectives : a qualitative study of a cognitive-behavioral intervention with a parent-training component for anxious youth(2017-08-07) Jones, Hannah Linley; Stark, Kevin Douglas; Carlson, Cindy I; Ainslie, Ricardo C; Reddick, Richard JAnxiety disorders are the most common psychological disorders in school-age children. This high prevalence is problematic because anxiety can have detrimental impairments on children and adolescents’ behavioral, social, academic, and emotional functioning. Therefore, many researchers have investigated the most effective treatments for anxious youth. Many randomized control trials have demonstrated that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is effective for treating pediatric anxiety. However, research has also shown that there is a significant proportion of anxious youth who continue to have an anxiety disorder diagnosis post-treatment. Furthermore, while research demonstrates that CBT can treat anxiety, little is known about how or why this intervention is beneficial. It is unclear if the effectiveness stems from certain aspects of the CBT treatment itself, such as exposures or cognitive restructuring, or if treatment is successful due to other more universal aspects of the intervention, such as a strong therapeutic alliance or certain client characteristics. Some researchers also posit that including parents in the treatment of anxious youth should help to enhance the effectiveness of CBT interventions, but the research has yielded mixed results. Gaining insights into the perspectives of youth and parents who have completed a CBT intervention could help clarify the beneficial aspects of treatment. CBT is part of a collaborative process between the therapist and the client, but if the participants’ perspectives on the treatment process and outcome are not obtained, then a key person responsible for change is being neglected. In order to truly understand how children and adolescents change in therapy, the participants have to be given a platform to share and amplify their voices and make their perspectives known. The primary aim of this dissertation study was to support youth and parents in sharing their perspective in order to gain a greater understanding of the lived experiences of what it is like to participate in a CBT intervention program. This study evaluated youth and parents’ perspectives through semi-structured interviews. A qualitative research method was used to assess the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the participants of a CBT intervention program with a parent-training component. Specifically, interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to gain a better understanding of the therapeutic change experience.