Web-based Attention Bias Modification Treatment for Childhood Anxiety Disorders

Plain-language summary

Anxiety disorders are the most common childhood psychiatric disorders, with prevalence rates as high as 15% to 20%. Success rates of the first choice treatment strategy (i.e. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy; CBT) are around 50%. Non-response increases the risk for other psychiatric disorders, school dropout, social isolation, alcoholism, and suicide attempts. These negative consequences endorse the urgent need to develop more effective and accessible treatments that enhance effectiveness of current treatment options. A promising new treatment for childhood anxiety disorders is Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT). ABMT is based on evidence that anxiety-disordered individuals selectively allocate their attention toward threatening information (i.e. attention bias). This bias in early and automatic attention processes starts a cascade of subsequent biases in information processing and memory, resulting in heightened anxiety. Attention bias is an underlying mechanism of anxiety. Thus ABMT, which implicitly trains individuals to attend away from threatening information should alleviate anxiety. In contrast to ABMT, CBT explicitly targets later stages of information processing that are under volitional control. Meta-analyses of studies in adults have shown that ABMT indeed results in increased recovery rates and clinically significant changes in anxiety, compared to so-called "sham" attention training (control condition). Imaging studies have shown that ABMT modifies lateral prefrontal cortex activity to emotional stimuli. Despite its promising results, fewer studies have examined ABMT in anxiety-disordered children. The aim of this trial is to enhance treatment effectiveness by combining web-based ABMT with CBT in a large sample of anxiety-disordered children. The primary aim is to compare ABMT-augmented CBT with CBT as monotherapy on recovery rates for anxiety disorders and changes in anxiety. The secondary aim is to compare ABMT with sham attention training on anxiety disorder recovery rates and changes in anxiety. We hypothesize that (1) ABMT-augmented CBT will result in a significantly better treatment success than CBT alone, and (2) ABMT will result in a significantly better treatment success than sham attention training. The design will be a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled clinical trial.

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