PARENT-CHILD INTERACTIONS IN FAMILIES WITH ANXIOUS CHILD

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案将与已经授予Moira Rynn博士的NIH k奖一起进行。该研究将在一项为期8周的精神药理学试验中检验舍他林对减轻儿童焦虑症状的影响。对当前研究的评估将被添加到k奖的协议中。虽然毫无疑问，生物学和社会因素对儿童焦虑的病因和维持有影响，但亲子关系也可能是影响因素。目前的提议试图通过检查父母和焦虑的孩子之间互动的本质来更好地理解这些关系的本质。除了归因风格（和偏见），父母对心理控制的使用已被观察到与儿童的焦虑行为相关，这两个结构将是本建议的重点。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal will be conducted in conjunction with an already awarded NIH K-Award given to Dr. Moira Rynn. That study will examine the effects of sertaline on reduction of anxious symptoms in children in an 8-week psychopharmacological trial. The assessments for the current study will be added to the protocol for the K-Award. While there are undoubtedly biological and societal contributions to the etiology and maintenance of childhood anxiety, parent-child relationships are also likely contributors. The current proposal seeks to better understand the nature of these relationships by examining the nature of interactions between parents and their anxious children. In additional to attributional styles (and biases), parents' use of psychological control has been observed as a correlate of children's anxious behavior and, together, these two constructs wilt be the focus of this proposal. Three areas of inquiry will guide this work: (I) description of the interactional styles of families with anxious children, (2) the impact of changes in the expression of children's symptoms on parenting behavior; and (3) an exploration of the mediational rote of psychological control in the relation between parent and child internalizing symptoms. Parent's use of psychological control, family expressions of attributional biases, children's expression of anxious symptoms, and parent's expression of anxious symptoms will be evaluated at pro-treatment and again 8-weeks later at post-treatment, The current proposal is unique in its design because child participants will undergo psychopharmacological intervention that has previously been found to reduce anxious symptoms by 50% in 90% of the sample. The intervention itself, therefore, will: (1) significantly reduce children's symptoms, and (2) have no direct impact on parenting behavior. This type of experimental manipulation of child behavior and the resultant impact of parenting provides a rare opportunity to examine the relationship between these constructs.