Editorial: The Vanishing Value of Evidence-based Treatments: Is Our Mental Health Expertise Irrelevant?

The article in this issue of JAACAP by the CAMELS (Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Extended Long-term Study) study team, Peris et al.1, offers 2 very important contributions. Conveniently, the first contribution is also the stated purpose of this report: to present findings detailing the extent to which children and adolescents who previously participated (averaging 6.5 years previously) in the landmark Child and Adolescent Multimodal Study of Anxiety (CAMS) multisite randomized controlled trial (RCT)2 did or did not receive follow-up services. This is not a good-news story. By and large, over the 6-year follow-up, only 35% of the previous RCT-treated children and youth received "consistent" continuing services, either through medication or cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), despite ongoing issues of anxiety and significant impairment.