We report active treatment group differences on response and remission rates and changes in anxiety severity at weeks 24 and 36 for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS).
CAMS youth (N ...= 488; 74% ≤ 12 years of age) with DSM-IV separation, generalized, or social anxiety disorder were randomized to 12 weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), sertraline (SRT), CBT+SRT (COMB), or medication management/pill placebo (PBO). Responders attended 6 monthly booster sessions in their assigned treatment arm; youth in COMB and SRT continued on their medication throughout this period. Efficacy of COMB, SRT, and CBT (n = 412) was assessed at 24 and 36 weeks postrandomization. Youth randomized to PBO (n = 76) were offered active CAMS treatment if nonresponsive at week 12 or over follow-up and were not included here. Independent evaluators blind to study condition assessed anxiety severity, functioning, and treatment response. Concomitant treatments were allowed but monitored over follow-up.
The majority (>80%) of acute responders maintained positive response at both weeks 24 and 36. Consistent with acute outcomes, COMB maintained advantage over CBT and SRT, which did not differ, on dimensional outcomes; the 3 treatments did not differ on most categorical outcomes over follow-up. Compared to COMB and CBT, youth in SRT obtained more concomitant psychosocial treatments, whereas those in SRT and CBT obtained more concomitant combined (medication plus psychosocial) treatment.
COMB maintained advantage over CBT and SRT on some measures over follow-up, whereas the 2 monotherapies remained indistinguishable. The observed convergence of COMB and monotherapy may be related to greater use of concomitant treatment during follow-up among youth receiving the monotherapies, although other explanations are possible. Although outcomes were variable, most CAMS-treated youth experienced sustained treatment benefit. Clinical trial registration information-Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders (CAMS); URL: http://clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00052078.
Social causation (adversity and stress) vs social selection (downward mobility from familial liability to mental illness) are competing theories about the origins of mental illness.
To test the role ...of social selection vs social causation of childhood psychopathology using a natural experiment.
Quasi-experimental, longitudinal study.
A representative population sample of 1420 rural children aged 9 to 13 years at intake were given annual psychiatric assessments for 8 years (1993-2000). One quarter of the sample were American Indian, and the remaining were predominantly white. Halfway through the study, a casino opening on the Indian reservation gave every American Indian an income supplement that increased annually. This increase moved 14% of study families out of poverty, while 53% remained poor, and 32% were never poor. Incomes of non-Indian families were unaffected.
Levels of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, psychiatric symptoms in the never-poor, persistently poor, and ex-poor children were compared for the 4 years before and after the casino opened.
Before the casino opened, the persistently poor and ex-poor children had more psychiatric symptoms (4.38 and 4.28, respectively) than the never-poor children (2.75), but after the opening levels among the ex-poor fell to those of the never-poor children, while levels among those who were persistently poor remained high (odds ratio, 1.50; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-2.09; and odds ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.77-1.07, respectively). The effect was specific to symptoms of conduct and oppositional defiant disorders. Anxiety and depression symptoms were unaffected. Similar results were found in non-Indian children whose families moved out of poverty during the same period.
An income intervention that moved families out of poverty for reasons that cannot be ascribed to family characteristics had a major effect on some types of children's psychiatric disorders, but not on others. Results support a social causation explanation for conduct and oppositional disorder, but not for anxiety or depression.
Anxiety disorders are common psychiatric conditions affecting children and adolescents. Although cognitive behavioral therapy and selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors have shown efficacy in ...treating these disorders, little is known about their relative or combined efficacy.
In this randomized, controlled trial, we assigned 488 children between the ages of 7 and 17 years who had a primary diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or social phobia to receive 14 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy, sertraline (at a dose of up to 200 mg per day), a combination of sertraline and cognitive behavioral therapy, or a placebo drug for 12 weeks in a 2:2:2:1 ratio. We administered categorical and dimensional ratings of anxiety severity and impairment at baseline and at weeks 4, 8, and 12.
The percentages of children who were rated as very much or much improved on the Clinician Global Impression-Improvement scale were 80.7% for combination therapy (P<0.001), 59.7% for cognitive behavioral therapy (P<0.001), and 54.9% for sertraline (P<0.001); all therapies were superior to placebo (23.7%). Combination therapy was superior to both monotherapies (P<0.001). Results on the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale documented a similar magnitude and pattern of response; combination therapy had a greater response than cognitive behavioral therapy, which was equivalent to sertraline, and all therapies were superior to placebo. Adverse events, including suicidal and homicidal ideation, were no more frequent in the sertraline group than in the placebo group. No child attempted suicide. There was less insomnia, fatigue, sedation, and restlessness associated with cognitive behavioral therapy than with sertraline.
Both cognitive behavioral therapy and sertraline reduced the severity of anxiety in children with anxiety disorders; a combination of the two therapies had a superior response rate. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00052078.)
Objective: To compare the effectiveness of individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (ICBT) and group CBT (GCBT) for referred children with anxiety disorders within community mental health clinics. ...Method: Children (N = 165; ages 7-13 years) referred to 5 clinics in Norway because of primary separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social anxiety disorder (SOC), or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.) criteria participated in a randomized clinical trial. Participants were randomized to ICBT, GCBT, or wait list (WL). WL participants were randomized to 1 of the 2 active treatment conditions following the wait period. Primary outcome was loss of principal anxiety disorder over 12 weeks and 2-year follow-up. Results: Both ICBT and GCBT were superior to WL on all outcomes. In the intent-to-treat analysis, 52% in ICBT, 65% in GCBT, and 14% in WL were treatment responders. Planned pairwise comparisons found no significant differences between ICBT and GCBT. GCBT was superior to ICBT for children diagnosed with SOC. Improvement continued during 2-year follow-up with no significant between-groups differences. Conclusions: Among anxiety disordered children, both individual and group CBT can be effectively delivered in community clinics. Response rates were similar to those reported in efficacy trials. Although GCBT was more effective than ICBT for children with SOC following treatment, both treatments were comparable at 2-year follow-up. Dropout rates were lower in GCBT than in ICBT, suggesting that GCBT may be better tolerated. Response rates continued to improve over the follow-up period, with low rates of relapse.
What is the public health significance of this article?
Findings indicate that both individual and group cognitive-behavioral therapy can be effectively delivered by community mental health practitioners with only a minimal amount of formal training. Outcomes were similar to those reported in more controlled settings.
Objective: We sought to examine predictors and moderators of treatment outcomes among 488 youths ages 7-17 years (50% female; 74% ≤ 12 years) meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental ...Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder who were randomly assigned to receive either cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), sertraline (SRT), their combination (COMB), or medication management with pill placebo (PBO) in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). Method: Six classes of predictor and moderator variables (22 variables) were identified from the literature and examined using continuous (Pediatric Anxiety Ratings Scale; PARS) and categorical (Clinical Global Impression Scale-Improvement; CGI-I) outcome measures. Results: Three baseline variables predicted better outcomes (independent of treatment condition) on the PARS, including low anxiety severity (as measured by parents and independent evaluators) and caregiver strain. No baseline variables were found to predict Week 12 responder status (CGI-I). Participants' principal diagnosis moderated treatment outcomes but only on the PARS. No baseline variables were found to moderate treatment outcomes on Week 12 responder status (CGI-I). Discussion: Overall, anxious children responded favorably to CAMS treatments. However, having more severe and impairing anxiety, greater caregiver strain, and a principal diagnosis of social phobia were associated with less favorable outcomes. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Objective: To review the literature on the cognitive-behavioral treatment of children and adolescents with anxiety and depressive disorders within the conceptual framework of evidence-based medicine. ...Method: The psychiatric and psychological literature was systematically searched for controlled trials applying cognitive-behavioral treatment to pediatric anxiety and depressive disorders. Results: For both anxiety and depression, substantial evidence supports the efficacy of problem-specific cognitive-behavioral interventions. Comparisons with wait-list, inactive control, and active control conditions suggest medium to large effects for symptom reduction in primary outcome domains. Conclusions: From an evidence-based perspective, cognitive-behavioral therapy is currently the treatment of choice for anxiety and depressive disorders in children and adolescents. Future research in this area will need to focus on comparing cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy with other treatments, component analyses, and the application of exportable protocol-driven treatments to divergent settings and patient populations.
Herein, we present a lithium-doped fullerane (Li x -C60-H y ) that is capable of reversibly storing hydrogen through chemisorption at elevated temperatures and pressures. This system is unique in ...that hydrogen is closely associated with lithium and carbon upon rehydrogenation of the material and that the weight percent of H2 stored in the material is intimately linked to the stoichiometric ratio of Li:C60 in the material. Characterization of the material (IR, Raman, UV–vis, XRD, LDI-TOF-MS, and NMR) indicates that a lithium-doped fullerane is formed upon rehydrogenation in which the active hydrogen storage material is similar to a hydrogenated fullerene. Under optimized conditions, a lithium-doped fullerane with a Li:C60 mole ratio of 6:1 can reversibly desorb up to 5 wt % H2 with an onset temperature of ∼270 °C, which is significantly less than the desorption temperature of hydrogenated fullerenes (C60H x ) and pure lithium hydride (decomposition temperature 500–600 and 670 °C respectively). However, our Li x -C60-H y system does not suffer from the same drawbacks as typical hydrogenated fullerenes (high desorption T and release of hydrocarbons) because the fullerene cage remains mostly intact and is only slightly modified during multiple hydrogen desorption/absorption cycles. We also observed a reversible phase transition of C60 in the material from face-centered cubic to body-centered cubic at high levels of hydrogenation.
Abstract Reports the characteristics of a large, representative sample of treatment-seeking anxious youth ( N = 488). Participants, aged 7–17 years (mean 10.7 years), had a principal DSM-IV diagnosis ...of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or social phobia (SP). Although youth with a co-primary diagnosis for which a different disorder-specific treatment would be indicated (e.g., major depressive disorder, substance abuse) were not included, there were few other exclusion criteria. Participants and their parent/guardian underwent an extensive baseline assessment using a broad array of measures capturing diagnostic status, anxiety symptoms and severity, and areas of functional impairment. Means and standard deviations of the measures of psychopathology and data on diagnostic status are provided. The sample had moderate to severe anxiety disorder and was highly comorbid, with 55.3% of participants meeting criteria for at least one non-targeted DSM-IV disorder. Anxiety disorders in youth often do not present as a single/focused disorder: such disorders in youth overlap in symptoms and are highly comorbid among themselves.
Background
Trichotillomania (TTM) is a psychiatric disorder that leads to significant hair loss, distress, and impairment. Few validated measures exist to assess TTM, and psychometric research ...examining these tools is sparse. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of commonly used TTM severity measures and extended prior research by including hair loss severity ratings in our analyses.
Methods
Participants included 91 adults (92.3% Female;
M
age = 35.0) with TTM who completed baseline assessments as part of a randomized clinical trial of psychotherapy for TTM. TTM measures included the Massachusetts General Hospital Hairpulling Scale (MGH-HS) and National Institute of Mental Health Trichotillomania Severity Scale (NIMH-TSS). Independent evaluators rated photos of participants’ most severely affected pulling sites using a one-item hair loss severity scale.
Results
Results showed mixed psychometric properties for TTM measures. The MGH-HS showed acceptable internal consistency (alpha = 0.83; omega = 0.89), while the NIMH-TSS had lower internal consistency (alpha = 0.52; omega = 0.73). Both the MGH-HS and NIMH-TSS demonstrated low test-retest reliability. Total scores on the MGH-HS and NIMH-TSS were not associated with hair loss severity.
Conclusions
Given these findings, it is imperative to develop new, psychometrically-sound TTM measures. These results also emphasize the importance of a multi-method approach to TTM assessment. In addition to self-report and clinician-administered measures, hair loss severity ratings may offer valuable information as part of a comprehensive assessment of TTM.
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