Developing a Brief Parent Training Intervention to Prevent Anxiety in Offspring

Abstract

Offspring of parents with anxiety disorders have an increased risk of developing anxiety themselves. Very few studies have evaluated interventions aiming to prevent anxiety in offspring of anxious parents. This study was a small (N=40) randomized pilot study with three arms evaluating the feasibility of a novel parent support group for anxious parents, the Supporting Anxious Parents Program (SAPP). The primary objective was to evaluate the acceptability of the SAPP. In addition, we also evaluated preliminary effects on child anxiety, parent risk factors, and quality of life, and feasibility of the study design. Excessive parental worry and anxiety and having a child not meeting criteria for an anxiety disorder (6-12 years old), served as inclusion criteria. Thirteen parents were randomly allocated to a group-based intervention, 14 to an individual Internet-based version of the intervention, and 13 to a waitlist control condition. The intervention was developed to target three risk factors involved in the parent-child transmission of anxiety; criticism/low warmth, overprotective behaviors, and modeling of anxiety. The results showed that parents were generally very satisfied with the intervention. We did not find any significant decreases in child anxiety in the intervention conditions. However, for the parents, we found preliminary support for reduced overprotective behaviors, reduced worry, and increased quality of life. The study design was found to be feasible. According to the results, a revision of the intervention is recommended before a full randomized controlled trial could be conducted.

Maternal autistic traits and anxiety in children with typical development in Chinese families: a moderated mediation model of mothers’ negative emotional expressions and child gender

“…Mothers’ sadness and anxiety, in particular, have been shown to have intergenerational transmission consequences. On one hand, the intergenerational transmission model of depression and anxiety ( Goodman, 2020 ; Åhlén et al, 2022 ) suggests that mothers with higher levels of depression and anxiety may cause themselves to neglect their children’s needs, especially by being less sensitive to their children’s emotional responses and less feedback and supportive, while generating more resentment, derogation, and blame for their children, which leads to higher levels of anxiety in their children. On the other hand, based on Social Learning Theory ( Bandura, 1977 ; Fu et al, 2022 ), anxiety is acquired by observing mothers’ fearful, apprehensive reactions to environmental stimuli.…”