Study: How to Treat Childhood Anxiety

Dec. 24, 2008— -- Caitlin Carey, 17, says her bouts with anxiety began when she was 6 and were not just a matter of being "a nervous Nelly."

Over time, she started washing her hands excessively to rid herself of germs. Then she worried about sinning and prayed constantly. Next, she feared being imperfect, and suffered from panic attacks two or three times a day. Writing a term paper in the 10th grade, the Bridgewater, N.J., student became too anxious and overwhelmed by its flaws to go on. She didn't sleep or eat for three days.

"You are just repeating stuff over and over in your head and the fear just keeps coming back," Caitlin told ABC News Wednesday. "It is very difficult to perform your daily functions, to go to school, and go to your activities and interact with people when your fear is always in the back of your mind."

Watch "World News with Charles Gibson" tonight at 6:30 ET for the full report

Now, Caitlin hasn't had a panic attack in two years. She has been on five different kinds of medication and sees a therapist to cope with her anxiety and her obsessive-compulsive disorders. She is pleased with the results.

"Since I've had medication it has helped so much, and since I have had treatment," she said. "But anxiety is very rough because it is always in the back of your mind and sometimes it creeps into the forefront of your mind. You are always afraid of something."

Caitlin is not the only one. Childhood anxieties are incredibly prevalent, and at times far more severe than the monster under the bed. Overwhelming and debilitating anxieties affect an estimated 10 to 20 percent of children, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Even at the low end of that range, the upshot is that more children may suffer from severe anxiety than with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

But how to best treat those children is a difficult question, and little has been published about how well therapy and medication work together.

A study unveiled today that will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine aims to provide answers. It finds that the combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and the medication sertraline, known as Zoloft, was more effective than either method on its own, and fared far better than giving kids a placebo.

"Both cognitive behavioral therapy and sertraline reduced the severity of anxiety in children with anxiety disorders," the report concluded. "A combination of the two therapies had a superior response rate."