Anxious youth in research and service clinics

With the current focus on increasing utilization of empirically supported treatments, knowledge of sample differences and similarities has increasing importance. The present study compared anxiety-disordered youth (age 7–13) from (a) five Norwegian service clinics (SC, N = 111) to (b) a university research clinic (RC) in Philadelphia, USA (N = 144) on pre-treatment characteristics measured by the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, Child Behavior Checklist, Teacher Report Form, Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule, and Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS). SC youth demonstrated higher levels of anxiety based on child- (d = 0.42–1.04) and parent-report (d = 0.53) and conduct problems based on parent-report (d = 0.43) compared to RC youth. SC youth was more functionally impaired on the CGAS (d = 0.97), whereas RC youth evidenced a greater number of diagnoses (d = 0.63). The two samples were equivalent regarding parent-reported symptoms of affective, somatic, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, and oppositional problems. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.

► We compared anxious youth from a US research clinic (RC) and Norwegian service clinics (SCs).
► SC youth had greater anxiety and conduct problems than RC youth.
► RC youth had greater comorbidity but less functional impairment.
► Affective, somatic, attention-deficit, and oppositional problems were equivalent.