Exploring American Parents' Lived Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Ramifications for Well-Being.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to document the direct impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on parents and families in the United States. METHODS: Parents' experiences during the pandemic were examined using an online survey (N = 564) collected during May and June 2020. RESULTS: Parents reported experiencing a high frequency of COVID-19-related events (e.g., job loss and health concerns) and impact on their lives. Parents' experiences with COVID-19, as well as self-reported perceived increase in home labor, experiences with assisting children with remote schooling, and work-life conflict were all significantly associated with higher levels of parental role overload. COVID-19-related events and impact, as well as parental role overload, significantly predicted parents' anxiety and depression, even after controlling for demographic factors. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest the importance of providing support for parents and families through direct services and public policy changes.

Streamlined Prevention and Early Intervention for Pediatric Anxiety Disorders: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

There is a need to optimize the fit between psychosocial interventions with known efficacy and the demands of real-word service delivery settings. However, adaptation of evidence-based interventions (EBI) raises questions about whether effectiveness can be retained. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated a streamlined package of cognitive, behavior, and social skills training strategies known to prevent and reduce anxiety symptom and disorder escalation in youth. A total of 109 youth (Mage = 9.72; 68% girls; 54% Latinx) at risk based on high anxiety were randomized to the streamlined prevention and early intervention (SPEI) (n = 59) or control (n = 50) and were assessed at pretest, posttest, and 12-month follow-up. A main objective was to determine whether our redesign could be delivered by community providers, with acceptable levels of fidelity, quality, and impact. In terms of process evaluation results, there was high protocol fidelity, excellent clinical process skills, few protocol adaptations, and high satisfaction with the SPEI. In terms of outcomes, there were no significant main or moderated effects of the SPEI at the immediate posttest. However, at the follow-up, youth in the SPEI reported greater self-efficacy for managing anxiety-provoking situations, greater social skills, and fewer negative cognitive errors relative to controls. Collectively, findings suggest that the redesigned SPEI might be an attractive and efficient solution for service delivery settings.

Parent and child emotion and distress responses associated with parental accommodation of child anxiety symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: Parental accommodation contributes to the maintenance of child anxiety and related symptoms. The current study examines the contributions of parent and child factors to parental accommodation in a sample of anxious youth. METHODS: Sixty-four treatment-seeking youth (6-16 years) and their mothers, as well as a subset of fathers (N = 41) reported on parental accommodation, parental distress and emotion regulation, child psychopathology, child externalizing behaviors, and child intolerance of uncertainty. RESULTS: Parental accommodation was not related to parental distress or emotion regulation. Parents who viewed their child as being more symptomatic (e.g., anxious, externalizing, and intolerant of uncertainty) were more likely to engage in accommodation. For mothers, child anxiety and externalizing symptoms were notable predictors of accommodation. CONCLUSIONS: Parent perceptions of child symptomology is an important factor significantly related to accommodation behaviors. This finding can be used to inform programming designed to target parental responses to child anxiety and related disorders.

Evidence-Base Update for Parenting Stress Measures in Clinical Samples.

Parenting stress is relevant to the development, maintenance, and amelioration of youth mental, emotional, and behavioral health issues. This Evidence Base Update evaluates the empirical literature on the measurement of parenting stress to guide future research and inform clinical decision-making. After a comprehensive literature search, we identified eight well-studied measures of parenting stress, to which we applied the criteria put forth by Hunsley and Mash (2008) and extended by Youngstrom et al. (2017) to evaluate the evidence base for norms, validity, and utility. All measures were rated adequate, good, excellent, or no evidence on 11 psychometric categories (e.g., internal consistency, treatment sensitivity). Overall, the ability of identified measures to accurately and reliably assess parenting stress was strong. Although the psychometrics vary across measures, the aggregated findings support the existence of a parenting stress construct and further confirm the relevance of parenting stress to family functioning, youth psychopathology, and mental health interventions.

Variations in the influence of parental socialization of anxiety among clinic referred children.

This study examined the relations between parental socialization of child anxious behaviors (i.e., reinforcement, punishment, modeling, transmission of information) and child anxiety and related problems at varying child sensitivity levels. Data corresponding to 70 clinic-referred children (M age = 9.86 years; 50% girls; 49% Hispanic/Latino, 51% Caucasian) showed that for children with low (but not high) anxiety sensitivity, anxiety-related parental socialization behaviors were associated with more child anxiety and depression symptoms. Findings also indicated that parental socialization of anxious behaviors and anxiety sensitivity functioned similarly in the prediction of anxiety and depression across Caucasian and Hispanic/Latino children. There were no significant mean level variations across child sociodemographic characteristics in general, but anxiety-promoting parenting behaviors were twice as high in Hispanic/Latino compared to Caucasian families.

A personalized and control systems engineering conceptual approach to target childhood anxiety in the contexts of cultural diversity.

In the child and adolescent anxiety area, some progress has been made to develop evidence-based prevention protocols, but less is known about how to best target these problems in children and families of color. In general, data show differential program effects with some minority children benefiting significantly less. Our preliminary data, however, show promise and suggest cultural parameters to consider in the tailoring process beyond language and cultural symbols. It appears that a more focused approach to culture might help activate intervention components and its intended effects by focusing, for example, on the various facets of familismo when working with some Mexican parents. However, testing the effects and nuances of cultural adaption vis-à-vis a focused personalized approach is methodologically challenging. For this reason, we identify control systems engineering design methods and provide example scenarios relevant to our data and recent intervention work.

Streamlined pediatric anxiety program for school mental health services.

There needs to be serious transformation of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) into real-world solutions; otherwise, EBIs will never achieve the intended public health impact. In a randomized trial, we reported effects of a redesigned anxiety program. Herein, we described the redesign process that led to the program. Survey data revealed provider preferences for school mental health anxiety services. Focus groups and prototype feedback sessions revealed service barriers to uptake, implementation, and sustainability along with corresponding enabling strategies. Prototype feedback sessions also focused on refinement and fine-tuning of the redesign. In the end, traditional EBI strategies were transformed and packaged into six lessons, lasting 20-30 minutes each, and amenable to delivery in small-group format. The redesign achieved the intended purpose of retaining elements from cognitive and behavior therapy and social skills training for the target population of the intervention (e.g., 3rd to 5th graders with heterogeneous anxiety problems - identified and referred). The streamlined EBI is accessible from PBS LearningMedia™ - a service that hosts public, research-based, and school-ready materials.

Shared decision-making for youth psychotherapy: A preliminary randomized clinical trial on facilitating personalized treatment.

OBJECTIVE: Engaging youth and caregivers as active collaborators in the treatment planning process is a patient-centered approach with the potential to facilitate the personalization of established evidence-based treatments. This study is the first randomized clinical trial to evaluate shared decision-making (SDM) to plan youth psychotherapy. METHOD: Forty youth (7-15 years; 33% ethnic minority) were randomly assigned to psychosocial treatment planned using SDM (n = 20) or planned primarily by the clinician (n = 20). In the SDM condition, clinicians guided youth and caregivers through a collaborative treatment planning process that relies on research findings to inform three primary decisions: (a) treatment target problem(s), (b) treatment participants, and (c) treatment techniques. Assessments occurred at baseline, following treatment planning, midtreatment, and post-treatment. RESULTS: Youth and caregivers in the SDM condition reported significantly greater involvement in the treatment planning process compared to their counterparts in the clinician-guided condition (U = 123.00, p = .037; U = 84.50, p = .014, respectively) and SDM caregivers reported significantly lower decisional conflict (U = 72.00, p = .004) and decisional regret (U = 73.50, p = .020). Supporting the feasibility of successful SDM implementation, there were no significant differences between conditions on treatment length, satisfaction with decisions, or engagement. There were no significant diagnostic or symptom differences between conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Planning psychosocial treatments in collaboration with youth and caregivers is a promising way to support youth and caregiver autonomy and plan evidence-based treatments that are responsive to patient preferences, culture, and values. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Relationship Between Parental Accommodation and Sleep-Related Problems in Children with Anxiety.

OBJECTIVE: Sleep-related problems, defined as sleep patterns atypical for the child's developmental stage, are common in children with elevated anxiety symptoms and linked to significant mental and physical health consequences. Despite the consequences of sleep-related problems, it remains unclear how these problems are initiated and maintained in children with elevated anxiety symptoms. The current study examines the relationship between sleep-related problems and parental accommodation (e.g., co-sleeping) to determine whether higher levels of accommodation are associated with more frequent sleep-related problems in a sample of children with elevated anxiety symptoms. METHODS: Participants were 122 children aged 8 to 17 years old (M = 11.97, SD = 2.68; 57% female) and their parents who presented to a university-based anxiety specialty clinic for assessment and treatment. Children completed the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, and their parents completed the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire and Family Accommodation Checklist and Interference Scale. Multiple regression analyses were performed to examine variance in sleep-related problems explained by parental accommodation. RESULTS: Parental accommodation accounted for a significant amount of variance in sleep-related problems over and above child anxiety and age for both mother report (19%) and father report (15%). When individual accommodation items were examined, parental sleep accommodations (e.g., slept in my child's bed) and nonsleep accommodations (e.g., came home early) were significant predictors for mother-reported sleep-related problems, but only sleep accommodations (e.g., let my child sleep with the lights on) were significant for father-reported sleep-related problems. CONCLUSION: Parents of children with elevated anxiety symptoms and sleep-related problems engage in accommodation related to their child's sleep (e.g., co-sleeping). Future research elucidating the potential bidirectional and causal links between parental accommodation and sleep-related problems is a necessary step in adapting sleep treatments for this population.

Assessment of anxiety symptoms in school children: a cross-sex and ethnic examination.

We evaluated the cross-sex and -ethnic (Hispanic/Latino, non-Hispanic White) measurement invariance of anxiety symptoms based on the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) as well as SCAS anxiety symptoms' correspondence with scores on the 5-item Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) and teacher ratings of child anxiety. Based on data corresponding to 702 children (M age = 9.65, SD = 0.70; 51.9 % girls; 55 % Hispanic/Latino), findings showed some sex and ethnic variations in SCAS measured anxiety at the item and scale levels. Moreover, SCAS correspondence to the 5-item SCARED was found across ethnicity and sex. SCAS correspondence to teacher ratings was found for non-Hispanic White boys and non-Hispanic White girls, marginally in Hispanic/Latino boys, and poorly in Hispanic/Latino girls.