Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA.
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA.
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2020 Oct;48(10):1291-1302. doi: 10.1007/s10802-020-00662-3.
Specific phobias are among the most prevalent anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Although brief and intensive treatments are evidence-based interventions (Davis III et al. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 15, 233-256, 2019), up to one-third of youth do not show significant change in their symptoms following these interventions. Hence, consideration of additional factors influencing treatment response is necessary. Child-factors such as temperament and parent-factors such as parenting behaviors both contribute to the development of specific phobias and their maintenance over time. Specifically, we addressed child temperament (negative affectivity) and parenting behaviors (overprotection) that could uniquely predict clinical outcomes for specific phobias and that might interact to inform goodness-of-fit in the context of these interventions. We also considered whether child- and/or parent-gender shaped the effects of temperament or parenting on clinical outcomes. Participants were 125 treatment-seeking youth (M age = 8.80 years; age range = 6-15 years; 51.5% girls) who met criteria for specific phobia and their mothers and fathers. Mothers' reports of children's negative affectivity uniquely predicted poorer specific phobia symptom severity and global clinical adjustment at post-treatment. Interaction effects were supported between parental overprotection and child negative affectivity for post-treatment fearfulness. The direction of these effects differed between fathers and mothers, suggesting that goodness-of-fit is important to consider, and that parent gender may provide additional nuance to considerations of parent-child fit indices.
特定恐惧症是儿童和青少年中最常见的焦虑症之一。尽管简短而密集的治疗是基于证据的干预措施（Davis III 等人，《临床心理学年度评论》，15，233-256，2019），但多达三分之一的青少年在接受这些干预后其症状没有显著改善。因此，有必要考虑影响治疗反应的其他因素。儿童因素，如气质，以及父母因素，如养育行为，都有助于特定恐惧症的发展及其随时间的维持。具体而言，我们研究了儿童气质（负面情感）和养育行为（过度保护），这些因素可以独特地预测特定恐惧症的临床结果，并且可能在这些干预措施的背景下相互作用，以告知适应性。我们还考虑了儿童和/或父母的性别是否影响了气质或养育行为对临床结果的影响。参与者是 125 名寻求治疗的青少年（M 年龄= 8.80 岁；年龄范围= 6-15 岁；51.5%女孩），他们符合特定恐惧症的标准，以及他们的母亲和父亲。母亲对孩子负面情感的报告独特地预测了治疗后特定恐惧症症状严重程度和整体临床适应不良。父母过度保护和儿童负面情感之间的交互作用支持了治疗后恐惧的作用。这些影响的方向在父亲和母亲之间有所不同，这表明适应性是重要的考虑因素，而父母的性别可能为考虑父母-子女适应性指数提供更多的细微差别。
