In-patient psychiatric-psychotherapeutic treatment of mothers with a generalized anxiety disorder--does the co-admission of their children influence the treatment results? A prospective, controlled study.

INTRODUCTION

Whether women who are admitted together with their children achieve inpatient psychotherapeutic treatment results that differ significantly from the results for women who are admitted alone, is a subject of controversy. We compared both groups in a prospective, randomized, controlled study.

METHODS

The monitored results of 29 female patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, 15 of whom were admitted with accompanying children and 14 without, were compared (response rate 95.3%). The period of observation amounted to six weeks. The System Checklist (SCL-90-R) and The Questionnaire of Changes in Experience and Behavior (VEV) were used as instruments of assessment.

RESULTS

With respect to co-morbidity and socio-demographic data, both groups were initially comparable. During the course of six weeks' treatment, no statistically significant differences between the results for mothers with and mothers without accompanying children were measured in any of the tests we used, namely, the VEV (Difference = 0.3; 95%-CI [-5.4; 6.1]; p = 0.66) and the SCL-90-R, which includes the Global Severity Index (Difference = 4.0; 95%-CI [-1.4; 9.4]; p = 0.15), and the Anxiety Scale (Difference = 0.5; 95%-CI [-2.0; 1.0]; p = 0.63).

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that mothers with generalized anxiety disorder who were accompanied by their children during in-patient psychotherapeutic treatment achieved treatment results that were just as good as mothers with the same diagnosis who were admitted without children.