Long-Term Outcomes of the Transdiagnostic Super Skills for Life Program on Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression: A...

The Super Skills for Life (SSL) program is a transdiagnostic preventive intervention based on a cognitive-behavioral therapy approach that has accumulated evidence supporting its effectiveness in reducing emotional difficulties in children. However, its long-term impact beyond a 1-year follow-up period remains to be thoroughly investigated. The primary aim of the current study was to evaluate, for the first time, the long-term outcomes of children who had received the SSL program approximately 6 years earlier. Specifically, the study examined short-term (post-intervention), medium-term (12-month follow-up), and long-term (an average 6.4-year follow-up) outcomes in an initial sample of 67 children (aged 6-8 years at baseline), with 34 participants (50.7% of the original sample) completing the long-term follow-up. Parent-report questionnaires were used to evaluate anxiety, depression, and anxiety-related interference in daily functioning. Results showed the greatest improvements at the 12-month follow-up, with significant reductions in symptoms across all outcomes compared to baseline. At long-term follow-up, most of these gains were maintained more than 6 years after the intervention, with significant reductions in 9 out of 12 outcomes evaluated, including the primary outcomes of anxiety and depressive symptoms and child anxiety-related interference in both parents' and children's lives. These findings provide new evidence of sustained symptom reductions in participants who previously received the SSL program and, to our knowledge, represent the longest follow-up to date, extending beyond the 1-year period.