Telehealth acceptance and commitment therapy for adolescents with transdiagnostic health-related anxiety: A pilot randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Health-related anxiety is an under-researched and pressing issue to understand in adolescents, particularly given the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study is a randomized, waitlist-controlled trial of 10 weekly, 50-min sessions of telehealth ACT targeting health-related anxiety in adolescents as compared to a waitlist. A sample of 30 adolescents (ages 12–17), plus one caretaker each (N = 60), currently struggling with clinical levels of health-related anxiety were enrolled. The majority of caretakers and adolescents were White, non-Hispanic/Latine, and female. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling across pre-, mid-, post-treatment, and one-month follow-up. Adolescents reported small, significant decreases in health-related anxiety as compared to the waitlist. Caretakers reported small to medium significant decreases in child general anxiety and small to medium improvements in parental psychological inflexibility. No additional significant differences were found between groups for caretaker- or adolescent-rated variables. Both adolescents and caretakers reported positive acceptability of the treatment. Limitations of this study include a small, homogenous sample, a lack of an active comparison group, and a short period of intervention and measurement. However, this study is the first randomized controlled trial examining ACT as a potential treatment for health-related anxiety in adolescents, and thereby adds to the growing literature supporting the use of ACT as a potential treatment option for youth with anxiety and related problems.