Anxiety of childhood and adolescence: Challenges and opportunities

Despite significant advances in our understanding of anxiety in childhood and adolescence, the area is still in its infancy. However, this is an area that is attracting increasing interest from researchers and clinicians alike. This editorial describes some of the aspects of research and clinical attention that are likely to be most fruitful in the coming years, and focusses on some of the inter-related themes that have emerged from the six papers comprising this special edition of Clinical Psychology Review. The first theme concerns the quality and limited power of studies (particularly treatment trials) that have characterised this field. A number of the authors contributing to this edition have noted that this lack of investment in high quality, highly powered research has prevented many of the key questions from being answered. Second, there is growing awareness that we are under-investigating anxiety in younger children. Third, and relatedly, there is still a huge amount of work to be done in understanding the role of the family in child anxiety. What limited information that does exist is confusing and contradictory, and some suggestions for clarifications in this area are made. Finally, there is a plea for more developmentally appropriate, family-focussed and child-led models of anxiety in young populations.