Associations between parental distress and pediatric anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment outcomes

Abstract

This study investigated whether an intensive group-based cognitive-behavioral therapy program with family involvement for children with anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder could help reduce parental distress by addressing the larger family system. This study also examined associations between parental distress and parent-reported child outcomes of treatment. Two hundred ninety-nine children and adolescents, ages 6–19, who were patients in the intensive treatment program and their caregivers participated in this intervention-based study. Parents reported significant reductions in their own distress from admission to discharge, and greater reductions in parent-reported distress predicted greater reductions in parents’ reports of their children’s anxiety symptoms and the degree of child functional impairment. Higher levels of parent-reported parent mental health symptoms at children’s admission and at discharge were associated with poorer levels of functioning in children at discharge. Parents’ mental health symptoms may play a critical role in children and adolescents’ treatment outcomes and therefore may need to be a separate treatment target.