Effects of Maternal Interpretation Biases on Child Anxiety and Related Responses

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童焦虑症（AD）是青少年最常见的精神健康障碍，终生患病率超过30%。研究表明，儿童AD导致严重和慢性损害，包括学业成绩不佳和过早辍学;同伴困难;身体健康问题;抑郁和物质使用;以及自杀风险增加。因此，从公共卫生、预防和经济的角度，迫切需要确定儿童AD发展的潜在机制。鉴于信息处理因素在儿童AD中的核心作用，以及亲子关系在塑造儿童如何解释环境中的重要性，研究人员强调了研究父母如何塑造儿童解释策略的必要性，这些策略与儿童焦虑有因果关系。更具体地说，需要研究母亲的解释偏见是否会增加儿童解释偏见，从而增加儿童焦虑的风险。本研究的目的是探讨母亲的解释偏差对儿童的解释偏差和儿童焦虑症状的130例AD儿童。患有AD儿童的临床焦虑母亲将被随机分配到一个训练计划，教他们以积极的方向解释与儿童相关的模糊情况，或者一个中性条件，不训练母亲以积极或消极的方式解释情况。随后，孩子们将被要求参加一个引发焦虑的演讲任务。母亲和他们的孩子将讨论他们将如何完成任务;在讨论期间，母亲的行为将由对训练条件“不知情”的观察者编码。在讨论之后，将评估儿童和母亲的解释偏差。最后，儿童的焦虑行为，生理唤醒，并在任务中的表现将进行评估。我们预计，临床焦虑的母亲谁是训练，以积极的方式解释与儿童有关的模棱两可的情况下（与那些谁没有接受这样的培训）将表现出减少焦虑的行为和评级的语音任务作为威胁较小。我们还预计，儿童的临床焦虑的母亲谁是训练，以积极的方式解释儿童相关的模棱两可的情况下，将率的语音任务的威胁比儿童的临床焦虑的母亲谁没有接受解释偏见的培训。我们还预测，接受积极解释偏差训练的临床焦虑母亲（与未接受此类训练的母亲相比）的孩子在言语任务中表现出较低的焦虑，这可以通过以下几点来证明：（a）较低的焦虑行为，（B）呼吸性窦性心律失常增加，（c）较高的言语任务中的焦虑行为。最后，我们预测，儿童社交恐惧症（SoP）的诊断将缓和母亲的解释偏见和儿童焦虑症状之间的关联，这样，母亲的解释偏见和儿童焦虑之间的关联在言语任务将更强的儿童SoP与其他AD。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood anxiety disorders (AD) are the most common mental health disorder in youth, with lifetime prevalence rates exceeding 30%. Research shows that childhood AD lead to significant and chronic impairment, including school underachievement and early dropout; peer difficulties; physical health problems; depression and substance use; and increased risk for suicide. Consequently, there is a strong need to identify potential mechanisms involved in the development of childhood AD, from public health, prevention, and economic standpoints. Given the central role of information processing factors in childhood AD, as well as the importance of the parent-child relationship in shaping how children interpret their environment, researchers have highlighted the need for research examining how parents shape child interpretation strategies known to be causally related to childhood anxiety. More specifically, research is needed to examine if maternal interpretation biases heighten the risk for childhood anxiety by increasing child interpretation biases. The goal of this study is to examine the effects of maternal interpretation biases on child interpretation biases and child anxiety symptoms among 130 children with AD. Clinically anxious mothers of children with AD will be randomly assigned to either a training program that teaches them to interpret child-related ambiguous situations in a positive direction or a neutral condition that does not train mothers to interpret situations in either a positive or negative manner. Children will subsequently be asked to participate in an anxiety-provoking speech task. Mothers and their children will discuss how they will approach the task; mothers' behavior during this discussion will be coded by observers "blind" to training condition. Following the discussion, children and mothers interpretation biases will be assessed. Finally, children's anxious behavior, physiological arousal, and performance during the task will be assessed. We expect that clinically anxious mothers who are trained to interpret child-related ambiguous situations in a positive manner (vs. those who do not receive such training) will exhibit reduced anxious behavior and rate the speech task as less threatening. We also expect that children of clinically anxious mothers who are trained to interpret child-related ambiguous situations in a positive manner will rate the speech task as less threatening than children of clinically anxious mothers who do not receive interpretation bias training. We also predict that children of clinically anxiou mothers who receive positive interpretation bias training (vs. those who do not receive such training) will exhibit lower anxiety during the speech task, as evidenced by (a) lower observer-rated anxious behavior, (b) increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and (c) higher observer-rated performance during the speech task. Finally, we predict that a social phobia (SoP) diagnosis in children will moderate the association between maternal interpretation biases and child anxiety symptoms, such that the association between maternal interpretation biases and child anxiety during the speech task will be stronger for children with SoP vs. other AD.