Maternal anxiety predicts favourable treatment outcomes in anxiety-disordered adolescents

Abstract

Objective: To determine the differential impact of maternal and paternal internalizing psychopathology on cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) outcome of anxiety-disordered children and adolescents.

Method: Participants consisted of 127 children and 51 adolescents with a primary anxiety diagnosis. Children were randomly assigned to a standardized group CBT or individual CBT; adolescents received individual CBT. Parents received four training sessions. Participants were evaluated at pre- and post-treatment with a clinical interview and with self- and parent-reported questionnaires. Lifetime anxiety and mood disorders in parents were obtained with a clinical interview.

Results: For children, no associations were found between maternal and paternal anxiety or mood disorders and treatment outcome. For adolescents, however, maternal lifetime anxiety disorders were positively associated with pre-post-treatment improvement in clinician severity ratings and with treatment success.

Conclusion: Lifetime maternal anxiety disorders were significantly associated with favourable treatment outcomes in adolescents. Paternal disorders were not associated with treatment response.