Treatment of anxiety disorders of childhood

The development of empirically derived, efficacious treatment methods for the range of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents lags far behind the field of adult anxiety treatment research. Controlled trials of both psychosocial and pharmacologic methods are warranted, and several trials are currently underway. Although the literature in this field is growing, many questions remain regarding the application and long-term benefit of interventions with youth. Specifically, although the field of adult psychosocial treatment research has advanced such that empirically derived treatment protocols are readily available, such methodologies are lacking for anxious youth. Serious attention must turn toward the empirical testing and validation of developmentally appropriate psychosocial treatment protocols. Fortunately, work in this area is currently under way in several centers (e.g., for social phobia, OCD, and generalized anxiety). Moreover, the role of parents in the psychosocial treatment process remains largely unexplored. Investigations are underway examining the effectiveness of training parents in the delivery of particular psychosocial procedures and evaluating the optimal "degree" of parental involvement. Attention also must turn to the systematic study of variables hypothesized to affect negatively the successful integration of parents (e.g., age of child, severity of disorder, parental psychopathology). And lastly, combined trials of pharmacologic compounds and psychosocial interventions are needed to examine the prescriptive treatment approach of matching patients to treatments.