O-02 - What's Null got to do With It? Long-term Outcome of Anxious Children in the eye of the Statistical Beholder

Abstract

Background

To date, no treatment outcome study for anxiety disordered youth was able to follow a control group for the long term.

Objective

To examine Long term outcome of anxiety disordered children who were treated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as opposed to comparable children who were not.

Methods

Subjects (N = 120) who were 8–12 years old at the time of initial assessment at an academic facility, were followed 8.2 (SD 1.5) years later. Children were equally divided between two groups, those treated with CBT and those who were not. A prospective “ex post facto” cohort design was used to compare the two groups. Psychiatric diagnoses were ascertained using the ADIS semi-structured interview. Primary outcome measure: Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC). Other measures were used to evaluate depression, functioning, global improvement, well-being, self-efficacy and self esteem.

Results

The treatment group did not differ demographically from the non-treatment group. No significant difference was found between groups at base-line in measures of anxiety and depression and at Long Term Follow-Up (LTFU) in measures of anxiety, depression, functioning, global improvement, well-being, self-efficacy and self esteem by both child and parent report. A significant pre-post improvement was found in measures of anxiety, depression and level of functioning in both groups.

Conclusions

Anxious children improve over time in functioning and measures of anxiety and depression. No difference was found between those treated with CBT and those who were not at LTFU. Further studies are needed to elucidate the association between treatment and long term gain.