Improving access to treatment for children with anxiety disorders
At Griffith University, we are conducting two nationwide studies funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Future Fund. The research is for children aged between 7 to 12 years of age with anxiety disorders. This study includes a thorough assessment with a trained clinician via the telephone and a computer task to determine your child’s treatment response style. Your child will receive gold class standard cognitive behavioral treatment alone or a personalized treatment delivered via Telehealth or in person. We are providing this service at no cost to families.
Please contact us to find out more information about the study by calling 07-3735 3351 or emailing us at cadrp@griffith.edu.au. You can also email us directly by filling in the email form below.
Why is the study being conducted?
For many children and their parents, anxiety can be highly disruptive and prevent children from doing things that other children their age can do. These projects aim to find out if personalized treatment based on your child鈥檚 treatment response style is more effective than one-size fits all treatment. This will mean that there are more personalized evidence-based treatments available for helping anxious children.
Are you eligible?
Your child may be eligible to participate if:
- he/she is 7- 12 years of age
- he/she meets the criteria for an anxiety disorder
- he/she is not receiving concurrent psychotherapy (if applicable)
- he/she is able to have their medication stabilised (if applicable) at the same dose for 12 weeks prior to diagnostic assessment.
Your child will not be eligible to participate if:
- a non-anxiety diagnosis is their main problem
- he/she has a pervasive developmental disorder or intellectual impairment
- he/she has physical impairments that prevent computer use e.g. vision impairment
- He/she has completed CBT treatment in the past
Expected Benefits
Results of this study may help us determine whether these treatments are effective for children with anxiety disorders. Such a development would allow us to share this information with other mental health professionals and to assist them in working with other families. Although no guarantee of treatment outcome can be provided to you, these treatments may benefit your child. Feedback will be provided after each assessment time-point and families will be contacted at the end of the study and offered the opportunity to receive a summary of the study findings in simple, easy to follow terms.
Publications
Waters, A. M., Sluis, R. A., Usher, W., Farrell, L. J., Donovan, C. L., Modecki, K. L., … Hinchey, J. (2025). Mental health outcomes for teenage boys and girls following a youth sports development program including a mental health program. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2025.2495590.
Sluis, R. A., Ryan, K. M., & Waters, A. M. (2025). Mental Health Screening and Early Intervention within Youth Sports Development Programs: A Review of the Literature. Psychiatric Clinics of North America.
Rapee, R. M., Creswell, C., Kendall, P. C. Pine, D. S., & Waters, A. M. (2023). Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents: A summary and overview of the literature. Behaviour Research and Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104376.
Waters, A. M., Ryan, K. M., Luck, C. C., Craske, M. G., & Lipp, O. V. (2023). Approximating exposure therapy in the lab: Replacing the CS+ with a similar versus a different stimulus and including additional stimuli resembling the CS+ during extinction. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 167, 104357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104357.
Lipp, O.V., Luck, C.C., Ney, L.J. & Waters, A.M. (2022). Intolerance of uncertainty affects electrodermal responses during fear acquisition: Evidence from electrodermal responses to unconditional stimulus omission. International Journal of Psychophysiology. 180, 17-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.07.005
Modecki, K. L., Ryan, K. M., & Waters, A. M. (2022). Fear learning and extinction predicts anxiety in daily life: A study of Pavlovian conditioning and ecological momentary assessment. Psychological Medicine 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722002379
Waters, A.M., Sluis, R.A., Usher, W., Farrell, L.J., Donovan, C.L., Modecki, K.L., Zimmer-Gembeck, M.J., Castle, M., & Hinchey, J. (2022). Kick-starting youth wellbeing and access to mental health care: Efficacy of an integrated model of care within a junior sports development program. Behaviour Research & Therapy. 157, 104166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2022.104166
Waters, A.M., Sluis, R.A., Ryan, K.M., Usher, W., Farrell, L.J., Donovan, C.L., Modecki, K.L., Zimmer-Gembeck, M.J., Castle, M., & Hinchey, J. (2022). Evaluating the multi-technology delivery of a mental health and wellbeing system of care within a youth sports development program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Behaviour Change. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1017/bec.2022.17.
Skversky-Blocq, Y., Shmuel, S., Waters, A. M. & Shechner, T. (2022). Observational extinction reduces fear and its retention among adolescents and adults. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 159, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2022.104207
Contact us
Please contact us to find out more information about the study by calling 07-3735 3351 or emailing us at cadrp@griffith.edu.au. You can also email us directly by filling in the email form below.