The Effect of Parent Involvement in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Children: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Among clinicians, it is common practice to include parents in treatment, and it has been taken for granted that parents' involvement in their children's treatment is beneficial for therapy outcome, although research on this issue is far from clear. A meta-analysis was carried out in order to investigate whether parent involvement potentiates the outcome for children with anxiety disorders when treated with cognitive–behavior therapy. Sixteen studies, which directly compared parent-involved treatments with child-only treatments, were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed a small, nonsignificant effect size of − 0.10 in favor of the child-only treatments. There was no indication of publication bias in the analysis. Implications of the results are discussed.

Keywords::

• treatment
• childhood anxiety disorders
• parent involvement
• cognitive–behavior therapy
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors thank psychology student Mari Ljungström for the help with the categorizing of format of intervention, and parental intervention. The authors also thank the support from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (BUP Stockholm), Stockholm County Council, and Centre for Psychiatry Research & Education, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council.