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。该研究将在为期8周的精神药理学试验中检查舍他林对减少儿童焦虑症状的影响。本研究的评估将添加到K奖方案中。 虽然无疑有生物和社会的贡献的病因和维持儿童焦虑，亲子关系也可能是贡献者。目前的建议旨在通过研究父母与焦虑的孩子之间的互动性质，更好地了解这些关系的性质。 除了归因风格（和偏见），父母对心理控制的使用被观察到与儿童的焦虑行为相关，这两个结构将成为本建议的重点。 三个领域的调查将指导这项工作：（一）描述的家庭与焦虑的儿童的intermittent风格，（2）的影响，在儿童的症状的表达对父母的行为;（3）的中介机制的心理控制父母和孩子之间的关系内化症状的探索。在治疗前和治疗后8周再次评估父母对心理控制的使用、家庭对归因偏差的表达、儿童对焦虑症状的表达和父母对焦虑症状的表达，目前的提案在设计上是独一无二的，因为儿童参与者将接受精神药理学干预，此前已发现90%的患者焦虑症状减少50%的样本。因此，干预本身将：（1）显着减少儿童的症状，（2）对养育行为没有直接影响。这种对儿童行为的实验性操纵以及由此产生的父母教养的影响为研究这些结构之间的关系提供了难得的机会。

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.