(PS9-C62) Bringing Culturally and Contextually Responsive, Evidence-based Practices for Youth Anxiety into the Classroom: An Examination of Teacher Perceptions

Background: Anxiety is one of the most common and interfering mental health problems in youth, with prevalence rates rising due to challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic (Racine et al., 2021). Most children with anxiety do not receive mental health services or supports, and reliance on traditional intervention approaches (e.g., once-a-week office-based therapy sessions) continues to limit the public health impact of evidence-based practices (EBPs). Moreover, stark ethnic and racial disparities in receipt of services persist, and there are increasing questions about the cultural and contextual relevance of standard EBPs for many youths. The current project seeks to reduce disparities, broaden the reach of mental health supports, and support existing efforts of teachers by identifying opportunities to infuse anxiety EBPs into culturally diverse elementary-school classrooms.

Methods: Participants will be general education teachers (i.e., Kindergarten through grade 6) from public schools serving the [redacted for masked review] community, a region characterized by marked ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic diversity. Data collection is expected to occur between March 2022 and September 2022. Participants (expected sample: N=60) will complete surveys assessing their perceptions of student anxiety, practices for student anxiety, as well as multilevel barriers and facilitators (e.g., teacher self-efficacy, school demographics) that are hypothesized to influence the perceived usability of anxiety EBPs. Usability of anxiety EBPs was selected as a key outcome of interest due to recent work suggesting that teacher-rated usability predicts implementation quality and associated student outcomes (Brann et al., 2021).

Results: We plan to present descriptive statistics on teacher participants’ perceived prevalence, manifestation, associated impairment, and sources of student anxiety in the classroom. Additionally, we will present descriptive statistics on teachers’ likelihood of using seven different anxiety EBPs (e.g., relaxation strategies, cognitive coping; Chorpita & Daleiden, 2009), as well as the perceived usability of each EBP, measured by the Usage Rating Profile-Intervention (Briesh et al., 2013). Lastly, we will present regression analyses to examine barriers and facilitators associated with perceptions of anxiety and anxiety EBPs. For example, we will examine teacher burnout (Maslach’s Burnout Inventory- Educators Survey; Maslach et al., 1996), teacher self-efficacy (Teacher Efficacy Beliefs Scale; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), and school demographics as predictors of perceived usability ratings.

Implications and future directions: This work takes the first step towards infusing EBPs into natural school routines by conducting a thorough assessment of teacher perceptions of student anxiety and anxiety EBPs. Findings from this study will lay the foundation for future work creating an asynchronous, online tool for teachers, providing information on the signs and symptoms of youth anxiety as well as quick and easy-to-use EBPs for the classroom. A future implementation study will examine teacher and youth outcomes over time to assess the effectiveness of the tool.