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Researchers led by a team at the University of Oxford say their ‘screening to intervention’ model, delivered in schools, could reduce the child anxiety treatment gap, enabling more children to get effective support more quickly.
In the randomised controlled trial, children from 84 schools in England were screened for anxiety problems using a questionnaire delivered to parents through schools. Of the 409 who screened positive for anxiety problems, around half were given support using a parent-led Cognitive Behaviour Therapy-based (CBT) online support tool called OSI (Online Support and Intervention), while the other half received usual school provision. The children’s anxiety levels were then checked at four, 12 and 24 months.
The study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), found that 61% of children allocated to the intervention no longer had anxiety problems after 12 months, as reported by their parents, compared to 38% in the control group. Teachers also reported anxiety had a lower impact in the classroom up to two years after the intervention was delivered.
Read the full story on the Department of Psychiatry website.