Preventing Anxiety Disorders in Urban Youth

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Anxiety Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Cognitive-behavioral group therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT00073619

R21MH063143 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

DSIR CT-P

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will determine the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral group therapy program in preventing anxiety disorders in at-risk children exposed to community violence.

Full description

Community violence is a major public health problem in low-income, urban communities. The mental health impact of living in a violent community is significant, particularly for children. Community violence exposure is associated with various symptoms of anxiety. Unfortunately, little research on the prevention of community-related anxiety in youth has been conducted. This study involves a school-based prevention and cognitive behavioral therapy program that will involve predominantly African American children who live in urban areas and are at risk for developing anxiety disorders.

Children in this study will be randomly assigned to either an anxiety prevention and early intervention group or a nonintervention group for approximately 3 months. Child, parent, and teacher assessments of anxiety symptoms will be made at the end of the study and at a 6-month follow-up visit.

Enrollment: 200 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Mild exposure to community violence
• Mild to moderate anxiety symptoms or disorders
• Attending public elementary school in an urban area
• In 3rd to 5th grades

Exclusion criteria

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV disruptive behavior disorder
• Too many or too few anxiety symptoms

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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200 participants in 2 patient groups

Cognitive-behavioral group therapy

Experimental group

Description:

School-based anxiety preventive intervention (cognitive-behavioral group therapy) originally designed for Australian children that was culturally and contextually modified for inner-city children exposed to community violence. Participants received the weekly intervention and rewards for participating in the assessments.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive-behavioral group therapy

Non-intervention Comparison

No Intervention group

Description:

Provide no active intervention to the comparison group, although assess the children at the same assessment points as the experimental group. Participants in the control arm were told they were FRIENDS Program participants.They received rewards for participating in the assessments.