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）是青少年中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会导致严重的慢性损害，包括学业成绩不佳和早期辍学；同行的困难;身体健康问题；抑郁症和药物使用；也增加了自杀的风险。因此，迫切需要从公共卫生、预防和经济角度确定儿童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方面的重要性，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，这些策略已知与儿童焦虑有因果关系。更具体地说，需要研究来检验母亲的解释偏见是否会通过增加儿童的解释偏见来增加儿童焦虑的风险。本研究的目的是检查130名AD患儿中母亲解释偏差对儿童解释偏差和儿童焦虑症状的影响。患有阿尔茨海默症儿童的临床焦虑母亲将被随机分配到一个训练项目中，该项目教她们从积极的方向解释与儿童有关的模糊情况，或者一个中立的条件，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。母亲和她们的孩子将讨论如何完成这项任务；在这次讨论中，母亲的行为将被对训练条件“视而不见”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，评估儿童在任务中的焦虑行为、生理唤醒和表现。我们期望临床焦虑的母亲在接受过以积极的方式解释与孩子有关的模糊情况的训练后（与那些没有接受过这种训练的母亲相比），会表现出较少的焦虑行为，并认为言语任务的威胁性较低。我们也期望临床焦虑母亲的孩子在接受训练以积极的方式解释与儿童有关的模棱两可的情况时，会比没有接受解释偏见训练的临床焦虑母亲的孩子更少地评估言语任务的威胁性。我们还预测，接受积极解释偏见训练的临床焦虑母亲的孩子（与没有接受这种训练的孩子相比）在言语任务中会表现出更低的焦虑，这可以通过(a)更低的观察者评价的焦虑行为，(b)增加的呼吸性窦性心律失常，以及(c)在言语任务中更高的观察者评价的表现来证明。最后，我们预测，儿童社交恐惧症（SoP）诊断将调节母亲解释偏见与儿童焦虑症状之间的关联，因此，与其他AD相比，SoP儿童在言语任务中母亲解释偏见与儿童焦虑之间的关联更强。

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.