The role of self-help in the treatment of mild anxiety disorders in young people: an evidence-based review

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problems experienced by young people, and even mild anxiety can significantly limit social, emotional, and cognitive development into adulthood. It is, therefore, essential that anxiety is treated as early and effectively as possible. Young people are unlikely, however, to seek professional treatment for their problems, increasing their chance of serious long-term problems such as impaired peer relations and low self-esteem. The barriers young people face to accessing services are well documented, and self-help resources may provide an alternative option to respond to early manifestations of anxiety disorders. This article reviews the potential benefits of self-help treatments for anxiety and the evidence for their effectiveness. Despite using inclusive review criteria, only six relevant studies were found. The results of these studies show that there is some evidence for the use of self-help interventions for anxiety in young people, but like the research with adult populations, the overall quality of the studies is poor and there is need for further and more rigorous research.

Treating nighttime fears in young children with bibliotherapy: Evaluating anxiety symptoms and monitoring behavior change

“…Researchers have pointed out that self-help treatments may be an effective means of treatment and potentially more efficacious than clinic based treatment for specific disorders (see Elgar & McGarth, 2008;Gould & Clum, 1993;Hirai & Clum, 2006;Rapee, Abbott, & Lyneham, 2006). As such, bibliotherapy has been identified as an alternate approach to treating children and adolescents with varying forms of psychopathology (Paparoussi, Andreou, & Gkouni, 2011;Rickwood & Bradford, 2011).…”

Individually tailored internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for adolescents with anxiety disorders: A pilot effectiveness study

“…Lastly, although there is strong evidence for psychological treatment, only onefifth of children and adolescents with anxiety disorders or depression receive treatment (Essau, 2005;Gren-Landell et al, 2013;Ranta et al, 2009). Accordingly, there is a need to make treatments available to those not assisted by current services (Rickwood & Bradford, 2012).…”

Practitioner Review: Unguided and guided self‐help interventions for common mental health disorders in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…More recent reviews of computerised interventions for anxiety and/or depression in youth, of which the majority were self‐help or guided self‐help, demonstrated medium to large effect sizes (Ebert et al., ; Pennant et al., ; Rooksby, Elouafkaoui, Humphris, Clarkson, & Freeman, ; Stasiak et al., ); although findings were inconclusive for younger children (Pennant et al., ) and noncomputerised interventions, such as bibliotherapy, were not included and therefore the type of self‐help could not be investigated. Rickwood and Bradford () conducted a review of self‐help only for mild anxiety disorders; the review was not limited to Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) and only contained six studies. Self‐help programmes may also be effective in the treatment of childhood behaviour disorders (Baumel & Faber, ; Montgomery, Bjornstad, & Dennis, ; O'Brien & Daley, ).…”