The feelings club: randomized controlled evaluation of school-based CBT for anxious or depressive symptoms
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with anxious or depressive symptoms are at risk of developing internalizing disorders and their attendant morbidity. To prevent these outcomes, school-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been developed, but few studies include active control conditions. We evaluated a preventive CBT program targeting internalizing symptoms relative to an activity contrast condition post-intervention and at 1-year follow-up. METHODS: One thousand one hundred and thirty-nine children from Grades 3-6 from a diverse sample of schools, were screened with the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children and Children's Depression Inventory. Those with t>60 on either measure were offered participation in a randomized 12-week trial, school-based group CBT versus a structured after-school activity group of equal duration. We explored several therapeutic elements as potential predictors of change. RESULTS: One hundred and forty-eight children participated (84 boys, 64 girls; 78 CBT, 70 contrast; 57% Caucasian) and 145 completed the program. Self-reported anxious and depressive symptoms decreased significantly over time (η(2)=.15 and .133, respectively), with no group by time interaction. There was a trend toward fewer children meeting diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder on the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule at 1-year post-CBT than post-contrast (6/76 versus 12/69). Positive reinforcement of child behavior was associated with change in anxiety symptoms; checking homework was understood with change in depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that children with internalizing symptoms may benefit from both school-based CBT and structured activity programs. Replication, longer follow-up, and further studies of therapeutic elements in child CBT are indicated. ISRCTN Registry identifier: ISRCTN88858028, url: http://www.controlled-trials.com/.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".