Youth with anxiety disorders in research and service clinics: examining client differences and similarities

Compared 2 groups of children with anxiety disorders: those treated in a university-based research clinic (RC) and those treated in community-based service clinics (SCs). A widely endorsed goal in intervention research is to disseminate evidence-based treatments from RCs to SCs. Attaining this goal requires an understanding of the similarities and differences between clients in these 2 settings. Youth from SCs showed more comorbid externalizing diagnoses and externalizing problems and were more likely to come from low-income and single-parent families. On measures of internalizing symptomatology and diagnoses, youth from RCs were very similar to SC youth. To facilitate development of treatments with real-world applicability, we describe a model involving the testing of treatments in real-world settings. We also discuss limitations to this project.