Anxious children can benefit from a medication that is often prescribed for depression and other mental disorders, according to a new study that's likely to stir debate over the use of psychiatric drugs in youngsters.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine say the drug helped children who were afraid to sleep alone, attend school or make friends, or who worried needlessly that terrible things would happen to them or their parents.
After eight weeks of treatment, doctors say, substantial numbers of children slept better, began socializing and performed better in school because they worried less.
The study, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, was the first large-scale trial of a medication to treat anxiety in children.
Dr. John Walkup, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist involved in the study, said yesterday that findings do not mean doctors should immediately consider the drug - Luvox - for extremely worried children.
Further research is needed to decide how the medication compares with talk therapy or whether the two should be used together, he said.
Studies have shown that cognitive therapy, a method that helps patients to change distorted patterns of thinking, is effective in reducing anxiety in both children and adults. But there have been no studies comparing such nondrug approaches and drugs in the treatment of anxious children.
At minimum, said Walkup, the study shows that severe anxiety should not be dismissed as a normal feature of childhood and that treatment can be beneficial.
"If kids are worried, fearful or anxious, we shouldn't think of those symptoms as benign," said Walkup, the principal investigator along with Dr. Mark Riddle, also of Johns Hopkins. "They should raise suspicions and concerns, and parents should talk to a pediatrician or mental health professional."
Leading to later problems
Walkup said that untreated anxiety can lead to severe depression and other problems in adulthood.
Luvox belongs to a family of medications that elevate mood by making the brain chemical, serotonin, more available to nerve receptors. The drugs include the popular antidepressants Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.
Luvox has much the same effect on the brain as the antidepressants and is prescribed to treat depression in children and adults. For marketing reasons, however, the drug was introduced as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder, a mental disease in which patients engage in repetitive behaviors such as cleaning, counting and hand washing.
