ORIGINAL PAPER Is Triple P Positive Parenting Program Effective on Anxious Children and Their Parents? 4th Month Follow up Results Gonca O ¨ zyurt 1 • O ¨ zlem Gencer 2 • Yusuf O ¨ ztu ¨rk 3 • Aylin O ¨ zbek 2 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Abstract The aim of this study is to evaluate the effec- tiveness of Triple P Positive Parenting Program, which has been shown to be effective in reducing children’s behavior problems in a variety of populations, on childhood anxiety disorders. This is an open-labelled continuation study of the randomized, single-blinded, controlled trial which is done 4 months after the intervention. A total of 50 subjects ages between 8 and 12 diagnosed with anxiety disorder were enrolled to the open-labelled phase of the study. The two groups were compared right before and 4 months after the implementation with various questionnares which measured the children’s amotional and behavioral prob- lems and anxiety severity and parental general well being and axiety were also evaluated. Children’s general anxiety level and anxiety disorder severity of intervention group were significantly lower than waiting list group. In this study, it is shown that parental anxiety and general well being were also improved. Our results suggest that Triple P may be an effective and useful method of treatment for anxious children. Large sample sized studies are needed. Keywords Anxiety Á Childhood anxiety disorders Á Child–parent relation Á Triple P Á Parent intervention Introduction In general population, anxiety disorders affect 25 % of individuals over a lifetime as the most prevalent mental health problem. (Kessler et al. 2005b, 1994). Anxiety disor- der usually begins in childhood (Kessler et al. 2005a) and it causes serious impairment in academic performance, peer relations and family functioning (Grills and Ollendick 2002). When childhood anxiety disorders are untreated, they can persist during adulthood, they can elevate risk for the development of depression, they can cause sleep disturbance, and they can end up with problematic substance usage (e.g., Alfano et al. 2007; Kaplow et al. 2001; Kendall et al. 2004). After the treatment using cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT); just about 60–70 % of youth do not meet criteria for an anxiety disorder (Kendall et al. 1997; Kendall et al. 2008; Silverman et al. 1999; Walkup et al. 2008). Applying CBT-based interventions to parents, as an alternative to using CBT with children who are diagnosed with anxiety disorder, has been evaluated. Thienemann et al. (2006) applied CBT protocol to a group of parents whose children were 7–16 years old and were diagnosed with primary anxiety disorders. After the protocol, children had signifi- cant improvement on parent and clinician rated measures of anxiety. This study indicated that parents acting as lay cognitive-behavioral therapists on anxious children may be effective for the treatment (Thienemann et al. 2006). In Cartwith-Hatton et al.’s study (2011), parents of 74 anxious children (aged 9 years or less) taking part in the new 10-session group-format intervention were compared with a wait-list control condition. At the end of the study, it was found that children whose parent(s) received the intervention were significantly less anxious than those in the control condition (Cartwith-Hatton et al. 2011). In a similar study of Smith et al. (2014), the efficiency of a cognitive- & Gonca O ¨ zyurt goncaenginozyurt@gmail.com 1 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic, Nevsehir State Hospital, Nevsehir, Turkey 2 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Dokuz Eylul University Medical School, Izmir, Turkey 3 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Katip C ¸ elebi University Medical School, Izmir, Turkey 123 J Child Fam Stud DOI 10.1007/s10826-015-0343-z