Introduction: Sleep disturbances are common among adolescents and are associated with elevated anxiety, and dificulties managing affect. Familial conlict is associated with both anxiety sensitivity and adolescent sleep disturbances. No work to date has examined how adolescent sleep disturbances may interact with anxiety sensitivity in relation to adolescent affective responding to parent-adolescent conlict. The current study was designed to address this gap in the literature by examining how adolescent sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity, conlict elicited anger, and conlict avoidance are associated. Method: Seventy-two American adolescents (n = 39 males) between the ages of 12 and 16 years (M age = 13.84, SD = 1.38) completed a baseline assessment as well as a well-validated motheradolescent laboratory-based conlict task. Results: For youth low in anxiety sensitivity, greater sleep disturbance related positively to conlict-elicited anger, which in turn predicted higher conlict avoidance. In contrast, this indirect effect was not signiicant for adolescents relatively higher in anxiety sensitivity. Instead, for these adolescents, increased sleep disturbances were associated with lower levels of conlict elicited anger. Conclusions: Results suggest that the effects of sleep disturbances on conlict elicited anger may vary as a function of adolescent anxiety vulnerability. These indings highlight the importance of considering the unique effects of sleep disturbances on adolescent affect as a function of adolescent anxiety vulnerability.Sleep and Affective Reactivity. Sleep disturbances are common and chronic among adolescents, and are associated with increased risk for a host of psychological and somatic issues (Roberts, Roberts,
Concerns regarding parent mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic are justifiably on the rise. Although anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress levels have risen precipitously across all demographics during the pandemic, parents residing with their children are under particular and unique strain. Caregivers with children in the home are responsible not only for their own health, financial security, and safety during this time, but often full-time caregiving, household management and, in many cases, their children’s schooling. In this case paper, we describe the development of the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders for Caregivers (UP-Caregiver) and provide a case example of its implementation. This 4-session indicated prevention for caregivers is a modification of existing versions of the Unified Protocols for adults and children, modified to maximize its responsiveness to issues faced by parents and caregivers living with youth (ages 6–13) during the current pandemic. UP-Caregiver was offered as part of a randomized, controlled trial via telehealth in a small group format to any parent with a child in the specified age range with mild or greater anxiety, depression or traumatic stress symptoms during an initial screening. The case example provided is of a White, Hispanic mother with a range of self-reported emotional disorder concerns at an initial assessment. Declines in anxiety, depression and traumatic stress symptoms were all noted, as well as improvements in parenting self-efficacy and distress tolerance 6-weeks after initiating UP-Caregiver. An ongoing randomized, controlled trial of UP-Caregiver will further evaluate the utility and feasibility of this approach to alleviate parental distress during COVID-19.
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