Intensive Treatment for Childhood Anxiety and OCD

The Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Laboratory studies and conducts five-day intensive exposure and response prevention treatment protocols for pediatric OCD.

In the latest study, 22 children with OCD received ERP treatment twice daily for five days. The treatment emphasized teaching children and parents how to conduct ERP independently after they returned home. Symptoms were assessed at four time points: baseline, four weeks later at pre-treatment, one week after the intensive five-day treatment, and at three-month follow up.

Changes on the primary outcome measure, clinician severity ratings on the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children and secondary measures, indicate that OCD symptoms remained stable from the evaluation to baseline and improved significantly from baseline to follow up. Moreover, parental accommodation of OCD decreased significantly from baseline to post-treatment and from post-treatment to follow up.

These data suggest that the five-day intervention demonstrate efficacy in reducing OCD symptoms and may initiate change in parental accommodation that continues to improve after the family returns home.

Learn more about the 5-day Intensive Treatment for Pediatric Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (PDF).