Reducing the Nighttime Fears of Young Children Through a Brief Parent-Delivered Treatment\u2014Effectiveness of the Hungarian Version of Uncle Lightfoot

Krisztina Kopcsó,András Láng,Mary F Coffman

doi:10.1007/s10578-020-01103-4

Krisztina Kopcsó, András Láng + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-020-01103-4

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Abstract

The aims of the present study were to evaluate the efficacy of a brief intervention, and to determine for whom the treatment works. 73 children between 3 and 8 years of age with significant nighttime fears were enrolled in an intervention group (n = 36) or in a waitlist group (n = 37). The intervention involved a 5-week parent delivered therapy. Assessments took place at baseline, post-treatment, and 20 weeks following baseline. In the intervention group, compared with the waitlist group, nighttime-related fears and phobic symptoms decreased more, whereas adaptive nighttime behavior increased to a greater extent. The more time children spent with exposure and relaxation games during the intervention, the more their separation anxiety and maladaptive nighttime behavior were reduced. Girls’ fear of darkness was reduced to a greater extent. The present study provides support for the use of parent-delivered therapy in the treatment of childhood nighttime fears.

Highlights

Nighttime fears are common in children and are a normal part of child development [1,2,3]
Correlations between the duration of recommended activities, and temporal changes in separation anxiety and nighttime behavior adaptivity were analyzed to further understand the moderating effect. These analyses suggested that the more time a child spent with exposure games, the greater was the reduction in separation anxiety for post-treatment (r = 0.525, p = 0.005) and follow-up (r = 0.549, p = 0.003), as well as the greater was the increase of nighttime behavior adaptivity at post-treatment (r = 0.610, p = 0.001) and follow-up (r = 0.519, p = 0.006)
The aims of the present study were to evaluate the efficacy of a brief parent-delivered intervention, guided by a self-help book, and to determine for whom the treatment works. 73 children between three and eight years of age with significant nighttime fears were enrolled in an intervention group (n = 36) or in a waitlist group (n = 37), based on participants’ place of residence

Summary

Introduction

Nighttime fears are common in children and are a normal part of child development [1,2,3]. “Nighttime fears are normal reactions to real or imagined threats at night” [1], usually defined as a heterogenous set of fears, including fear of imaginary creatures, burglars, animals, and other nighttime fears in addition to fear of the dark. Nighttime fears do not constitute a separate diagnostic category, children with severe and permanent nighttime fears might meet the criteria for a specific phobia diagnosis [4]. An estimated 2% of children have darkness phobia [5], which mainly manifests itself by protests against going to bed and not wanting to sleep with the lights turned off [6]. Research findings suggest that nighttime fears or fear of the dark in childhood are associated with sleep problems [7, 8], co-sleeping with caregivers [9], externalizing and internalizing problems [7, 10,11,12], anxiety disorders [3], and fears, other than nighttime fears [11, 12]

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