A pilot investigation of universal school-based prevention programs for anxiety and depression symptomology in children: A randomized controlled trial

Objective:The current study aimed to provide a preliminaryevaluation of two universal school‐based prevention programs,Emotion Regulation (ER) and Behavioral Activation (BA), byincreasing resilience to manage excessive worry, a transdiag-nostic feature across anxiety and depression.Method:Primary school children (N= 295; 52.5% female;8-13 years) from five Australian schools were clusterrandomized to an ER, BA or usual class control condition.Outcome measures included resilience, worry, anxiety, anddepression symptomology; ER and BA were measured aspotential mediators. Participants completed measures atpre‐and postprogram, and at 6‐month follow‐up.Results:Children in the BA condition showed increasedresilience at 6 months. Expressive suppression mediated theeffects of both programs on worry.Conclusion:The current study aimed to provide a pre-liminary evaluation of two universal school‐based preven-tion programs, ER and BA, by increasing resilience tomanage excessive worry, a transdiagnostic feature acrossanxiety and depression.