The treatment of childhood social phobia: The effectiveness of a social skills training-based, cognitive-behavioural intervention, with and without parental involvement

Fifty children aged 7-14 years with a principal diagnosis of social phobia were randomly assigned to either child-focused cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT), CBT plus parent involvement, or a wait list control (WLC). The integ rated CBT program involved intensive social skills training combined with g raded exposure and cognitive challenging. At posttreatment, significantly f ewer children in the treatment conditions retained a clinical diagnosis of social phobia compared to the WLC condition. In comparison to the WLC, chil dren in both CBT interventions showed significantly greater reductions in c hildren's social and general anxiety and a significant increase in parental ratings of child social skills performance. At 12-month follow-up, both tr eatment groups retained their improvement. There was a trend towards superi or results when parents were involved in treatment, but this effect was not statistically significant.