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Comparison of an Anxiety Management Program for Children Implemented at Home and School: Lessons Learned

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Abstract

The feasibility of delivering an early intervention program for the management of child anxiety in either a school- or home setting, relative to a waitlist-control condition, was investigated in this study. Two thousand eight hundred and eighteen Australian children in grades 2–6 were screened for anxiety, and a high-anxious sample of 325 (those scoring in the 90–100th percentile relative to their age-mates) were invited to participate. Of these, 152 consented to participate in the anxiety program. Measures were collected from participating children, their parents, teachers and school counselors. Children participating in the active conditions (home-based and school-based interventions) showed significantly greater reductions in anxiety and anxiety-related interference in daily life, compared to the waitlist-control group according to parents’ reports. In contrast, reports from children and teachers failed to show significant group differences on measures of anxiety. Although these preliminary results show some promise, their replication in future research is necessary given current study limitations. Consideration of feasibility issues, implementation challenges and directions for future research is discussed along with key recommendations for the translation of evidence-based programs to settings beyond the psychology clinic, such as the school and home environments.

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Notes

  1. Analyses were also performed using only data from children who completed at least an active dose of treatment (more than half of the program was completed). The same pattern of results was found in these analyses and therefore only the intention-to-treat results are presented in full.

  2. In order to address the possibility that schools may have differed in their effects, all analyses were rerun as mixed effects models and the child’s school was entered as an initial factor. The results remained very similar and all patterns of significance remained the same.

  3. Given the reported difference between public and private schools in reported barriers, all key analyses were rerun including type of school (public vs private) as an additional factor. None of the three-way interactions (time x condition x school type) nor the two-way interactions between time and school type were significant.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from Australian Rotary Health to the second author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Women’s and Children’s Health, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia

    Jordana K. McLoone

  2. Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

    Ronald M. Rapee

  3. Centre for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Level 1, High St, Randwick, NSW, 2031, Australia

    Jordana K. McLoone

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  1. Jordana K. McLoone
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Correspondence to Jordana K. McLoone.

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McLoone, J.K., Rapee, R.M. Comparison of an Anxiety Management Program for Children Implemented at Home and School: Lessons Learned. School Mental Health 4, 231–242 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-012-9088-7

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