Background: Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders of childhood, generating significant distress in the individual and an economic burden to society. They are precursors to diverse psychiatric illnesses and have an impact on development. Childhood anxiety's reach into the future accentuates the importance of studying the long-term effect of treatment. The purpose of this paper is to examine existing Long-Term-Follow-Up (LTFU) studies' capacity to inform us on the impact of anxiety treatment on development.
Method: Medline, PsycInfo, SciSearch, SocScisearch, Cinhal, Embase, and the Cochrane library were searched. Bibliographies of relevant book chapters and review articles and information from colleagues with expertise in anxiety were also a source of information. The search produced more than a thousand citations. Only eight studies met inclusion criteria: follow-up of a cohort of treated anxious youth for more than 2 years.
Results: follow-up ranged from 2 to 7.4 years. The studies were methodologically rigorous and, in general, showed maintenance of or improvement in acute treatment gains. The studies reviewed could not outline course of recovery or control for pivotal confounding variables such as maturation. Seven of the eight studies employed a Cognitive Behavioral intervention and one employed a manualized, time-limited, psychodynamic intervention. No LTFU trial for medication was found.
Conclusion: ample evidence exists for the short-term benefit of pediatric anxiety treatment, but evidence is still lacking for the understanding of treatment's role in the facilitation of healthy development into adulthood. Recommendations for future research are proposed.