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Tackle your Tics, a brief intensive group-based exposure treatment for young people with tics: results of a

A P Heijerman-Holtgrefe1,2,3, C Huyser1, M Bus1

  • 1Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Levvel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
|April 4, 2024
PubMed

Insights

A brief, four-day behavioral therapy program for children with tics showed no immediate benefits over a waiting list. However, long-term improvements in tic-related impairment and quality of life were observed.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric neurology
  • Behavioral therapy
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Tics significantly impact children's quality of life and family functioning.
  • Behavioral therapy is a primary, evidence-based treatment for tic disorders.
  • A brief, intensive group treatment program was developed for children with tics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the efficacy of a brief, four-day group behavioral program called Tackle your Tics for children with tic disorders.
  • To assess tic severity, impairment, quality of life, and other outcomes at multiple time points.

Main Methods:

  • A randomized controlled trial comparing Tackle your Tics to a waiting list control group.
  • Participants included children diagnosed with tics.
  • Outcome measures included tic severity (Yale Global Tic Severity Scale), impairment, quality of life, and emotional/behavioral functioning, assessed at baseline, post-treatment, and 3- and 6-month follow-ups.

Main Results:

  • Directly post-treatment, both groups showed improvement, but there were no significant differences between the Tackle your Tics group and the waiting list group in primary outcomes like tic severity.
  • At 3-month follow-up, no between-group difference was found for tic severity.
  • However, the Tackle your Tics group demonstrated significant improvements in tic-related impairment, quality of life, and emotional/behavioral functioning compared to the waiting list group at longer-term follow-up.

Conclusions:

  • The Tackle your Tics program did not show immediate superiority over a waiting list.
  • This brief, four-day group treatment demonstrated effectiveness in improving tic-related impairment and quality of life in the longer term.
  • The findings support the potential of intensive, brief behavioral interventions for managing tic disorders in children.

Keywords:
Behavioural treatmentChronic tic disorderExposure and response preventionQuality of lifeTourette syndrome

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