The Impact of Guided Parent Delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy upon Anxiety in Children

Anxiety disorder is a prevailing mental condition among children and it leads to many problems in various aspects of their lives. This research was conducted to examine the impact of guided parent delivered CBT (GPDCBT) upon 7- to 12-year-old children with anxiety disorders in Tehran. This quasi-experimental research had a pretest-posttest control group design. In order to draw the sample, purposive sampling method was used and 66 children with various types of anxiety disorders who had been referred to Mofid Hospital Clinic in Tehran were chosen.  After filling out the consent form by the mothers, the subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. At the pretest stage, all participants were assessed using Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (1997). In the next step, the mothers in experimental group received GPDCBT in four face-to-face 1-hour sessions and four 20-minute telephone sessions and then the children received home-based intervention by their mothers. During this time, the control group was assigned to the waiting list and did not receive any intervention. At the end of the one-month treatment period and at the post-test stage, both groups were assessed again by the Spence Scale. Analysis of Covariance revealed that the mean of anxiety in the experimental group decreased significantly in comparison with the control group (F=25.11, p ≡ 0.001). The findings are indicative of the feasibility of guided parent delivered CBT for anxiety reduction in children.