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。这项研究将在一项为期8周的精神药理学试验中检验舍他林对减少儿童焦虑症状的影响。本研究的评估将被添加到K奖的议定书中。虽然在儿童焦虑的病因和维持方面无疑有生物学和社会方面的因素，但亲子关系也可能是原因之一。目前的建议试图通过研究父母和焦虑的孩子之间互动的性质来更好地理解这些关系的性质。除了归因方式(和偏见)之外，父母对心理控制的使用也被观察到与孩子的焦虑行为相关，这两个结构将一起成为本研究的重点。 三个方面的研究将指导这项工作：(1)描述有焦虑儿童的家庭的互动方式；(2)儿童症状表达的变化对父母行为的影响；(3)探索心理控制在父母和儿童内化症状之间的关系中的中介机械。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现以及父母对焦虑症状的表现将在治疗前进行评估，并在8周后的治疗后再次进行评估，目前的建议在设计上是独特的，因为儿童参与者将接受心理药理学干预，此前发现90%的样本中有50%的患者焦虑症状减少。因此，干预本身将：(1)显著减轻儿童的症状，(2)对育儿行为没有直接影响。这种对儿童行为的实验性操纵以及由此产生的育儿影响，为检验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.