Background: Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the earliest and most common mental disorders in childhood, and a strong predictor of adult psychopathology. Despite significant progress in psychotherapy research on childhood anxiety disorders, no randomized controlled trial has been conducted with a disorder-specific treatment program for young children suffering from SAD. Methods: Forty-three children (ages 5–7) with SAD and their parents were assigned to either a 16-session disorder-specific SAD treatment program including parent training and classical cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) components, or to a 12-week waiting list group. Categorical and/or continuous data for anxiety, impairment/distress and quality of life were collected at baseline, after treatment/waiting list condition, and at a 4-week follow-up. Results: Intention-to-treat analyses indicate that 76.19% of children allocated to the treatment group definitively no longer fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for SAD at follow-up, compared to 13.64% in the waiting list group. Between 91 and 100% of children rated themselves or were rated by their father, mother or therapist as very much or much improved on the global success rating immediately after treatment. Results indicated large time by treatment condition interaction effect sizes (d = 0.98–1.41) across informants for reduction of distress/avoidance in separation situations after the test for the treatment condition. Further, parents reported significant improvements in impairment/distress in the child’s major life domains and the child’s quality of life. Treatment gains were maintained at the 4-week follow-up assessment. Conclusions: Results indicate the short-term efficacy of a disorder-specific treatment approach for SAD, and are among the first to indicate that CBT programs work with young children.

Fragestellung: Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist, die Interrater-Reliabilität des Diagnostischen Interviews bei psychischen Störungen im Kindes- und Jugendalter (Kinder-DIPS; Schneider, Unnewehr & Margraf, 2009 ) anhand von Eltern- und Kinderinterviews für verschiedene Störungsklassen zu ermitteln. Zusätzlich wird geprüft, ob sich in Abhängigkeit des Alters oder des Geschlechtes des Kindes, Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Interrater-Reliabilität ergeben. Methodik: 264 Eltern- und 213 Kinderinterviews wurden von 48 geschulten Interviewern in kinder- und jugendpsychiatrischen und schulpsychologischen Einrichtungen sowie im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes durchgeführt. Ergebnisse: Die Übereinstimmungsmaße der Eltern- und Kinderinterviews zeigen eine gute bis sehr gute Interrater-Reliabilität der Oberklassen Expansive Störungen, Ticstörungen, Ausscheidungsstörungen, Affektive Störungen, Essstörungen, Schlafstörungen sowie einem Großteil der spezifischen Diagnosen und für den Ausschluss psychischer Störungen. Das Geschlecht und das Alter der interviewten Kinder hatten keinen Einfluss auf die Reliabilitätswerte. Schlussfolgerung: Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass es sich beim Kinder-DIPS mit trainierten Interviewern für die Oberklassen psychischer Störungen um ein reliables Eltern- und Kinderinterview zur Diagnostik psychischer Störungen handelt.

Results indicate a slight advantage of the TAFF program over a general child-based treatment for SAD. However, these differences were less strong than hypothesized, indicating that the inclusion of parent training does not add large effects to classical child-based CBT in school-age children with SAD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

The factor structure of the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI) was investigated in four nonclinic German samples (N = 1244, 225, 230, and 143) with participants aged 8 to 16 years old. Factor solutions suggested for different CASI versions were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The best goodness-of-fit indices were found for the 13-item CASI version with 4 factors. Testing for factorial invariance of this model with respect to age and gender revealed noninvariant factor loadings between children and adolescents as well as between boys and girls. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings for anxiety sensitivity in children and adolescents are discussed.

BackgroundMental disorders are classified by two major nosological systems, the ICD-10 and the DSM-IV-TR, consisting of different diagnostic criteria. The present study investigated the diagnostic concordance between the two systems for anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence, in particular for separation anxiety disorder (SAD), specific phobia, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).MethodsA structured clinical interview, the Kinder-DIPS, was administered to 210 children and 258 parents. The percentage of agreement, kappa, and Yule’s Y coefficients were calculated for all diagnoses. Specific criteria causing discrepancies between the two classification systems were identified.ResultsDSM-IV-TR consistently classified more children than ICD-10 with an anxiety disorder, with a higher concordance between DSM-IV-TR and the ICD-10 child section (F9) than with the adult section (F4) of the ICD-10. This result was found for all four investigated anxiety disorders. The results revealed low to high levels of concordance and poor to good agreement between the classification systems, depending on the anxiety disorder.ConclusionsThe two classification systems identify different children with an anxiety disorder. However, it remains an open question, whether the research results can be generalized to clinical practice since DSM-IV-TR is mainly used in research while ICD-10 is widely established in clinical practice in Europe. Therefore, the population investigated by the DSM (research population) is not identical with the population examined using the ICD (clinical population).