Krystal M Lewis, Paula Barrett, Gabrielle Freitag, Thomas H Ollendick
{"title":"An Ounce of Prevention: Building resilience and targeting anxiety in young children.","authors":"Krystal M Lewis, Paula Barrett, Gabrielle Freitag, Thomas H Ollendick","doi":"10.1177/13591045221121595","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders in childhood and can develop as early as the preschool years. Therefore, providing young children who display early signs of anxiety with skills to prevent the development of later psychopathology is invaluable. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of Fun FRIENDS, an anxiety prevention and resilience program for young children.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Fifty-seven kindergartners across three classrooms participated in a 15-week anxiety prevention program and teachers completed a behavioral screening measure and anxiety questionnaire at pre, post, 3 month, and 10-month follow-up assessment points.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Anxiety positively correlated with emotional symptoms<i>,</i> peer difficulties, and total difficulties at pre-intervention. Anxiety symptoms decreased from pre-intervention to follow-up. Additionally, prosocial behaviors improved and moderated the relationship between pre-and post-intervention anxiety symptoms.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings yield promising implications regarding the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs on increasing social emotional skills and reducing anxiety symptoms in young children.</p>","PeriodicalId":48840,"journal":{"name":"Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":"28 2","pages":"795-809"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13591045221121595","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHIATRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders in childhood and can develop as early as the preschool years. Therefore, providing young children who display early signs of anxiety with skills to prevent the development of later psychopathology is invaluable. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of Fun FRIENDS, an anxiety prevention and resilience program for young children.
Method: Fifty-seven kindergartners across three classrooms participated in a 15-week anxiety prevention program and teachers completed a behavioral screening measure and anxiety questionnaire at pre, post, 3 month, and 10-month follow-up assessment points.
Results: Anxiety positively correlated with emotional symptoms, peer difficulties, and total difficulties at pre-intervention. Anxiety symptoms decreased from pre-intervention to follow-up. Additionally, prosocial behaviors improved and moderated the relationship between pre-and post-intervention anxiety symptoms.
Conclusions: These findings yield promising implications regarding the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs on increasing social emotional skills and reducing anxiety symptoms in young children.
期刊介绍:
Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry brings together clinically oriented, peer reviewed work of the highest distinction from an international and multidisciplinary perspective, offering comprehensive coverage of clinical and treatment issues across the range of treatment modalities.
Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry is interested in advancing theory, practice and clinical research in the realm of child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry and related disciplines.
The journal directs its attention to matters of clinical practice, including related topics such as the ethics of treatment and the integration of research into practice.
Multidisciplinary in approach, the journal includes work by, and is of interest to, child psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists, nurses, social workers and all other professionals in the fields of child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry.