Web-based Parent Training for Child Anxiety: Phase II

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Parents/guardians who are concerned about their child's emotional development, especially difficulties related to excessive anxiety and stress, are in a valuable position to serve as change-agents for their children. Unfortunately, they are typically unaware of when to try to help, or how best to help their children. This Phase II project aims to design, develop, evaluate and eventually provide to the public an affordable web-based parent training (WPT) program that will be user-friendly and inform parents about evidence-based strategies they can use to help their children manage excessive and distressing anxiety and anxiety-related symptoms/disorders. The WPT will be (a) a stand-alone self-guided program as well as (b) an adjunctive component for parents of youth who receive treatment (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy; CBT) for anxiety. In Phase I, we developed and piloted a sample of one chapter of the 10-module WPT program. We worked with parents of anxious youth (in both clinical and non-clinical samples) and with CBT experts. The preliminary data indicated that the web-based modality is acceptable and feasible for use in this population, and the data support the further development and evaluation of such a program in a large-scale randomized controlled trial. This Phase II proposed project will involve (a) the development of the full 10-module WPT program and (b) the evaluation of the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the program compared to Bibliotherapy (BPT) and a Waitlist Control (WLC) in (a) parents concerned about their child (ages 7-14) suffering subclinical anxiety (non clinic sample) and (b) in parents of youth (ages 7-14) who are concurrently receiving cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for youth anxiety (clinic sample), in producing improvement in parent understanding of anxiety, strategies to support their child in managing anxiety, and evidence-based practice.