Social Anxiety
Conditions
Brief summary
This is an intervention study designed to evaluate a text message based safety behavior fading treatment for people with social anxiety disorder.
Detailed description
This study hopes to assess whether a month long text message based safety behavior fading protocol is effective in reducing safety behaviors and social anxiety symptoms. Over the course of four consecutive weeks, text messages will be sent to participants the first day of the study and every other day for four weeks (14 texts in total). These text messages will remind participants to either avoid using their three most engaged in safety behaviors (assessed at pre-treatment) or to stay present-focused. The past week frequency of the participants' safety behaviors will be assessed at the beginning of pre-treatment, post-treatment, and four week follow up assessments Participants will be asked to complete an additional online questionnaire for both a post-treatment and a 4-week post-treatment follow up assessment. We hypothesize that: 1) the safety behavior group will show a greater overall reduction in social anxiety symptoms, 2) that the safety behavior group will show a reduction in the frequency of safety behavior use, and 3) that the present-focused group will show an increase in mindfulness.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALSafety Behavior Fading
Participants are asked to fade their three most common safety behaviors associated with their social anxiety
BEHAVIORALPresent Centered
Participants are asked to try to increase their focus on the present.
Sponsors
Florida State University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Masking description
All participants are assigned to a condition and given a treatment justification, but are not told whether they are in the treatment or control condition.
Intervention model description
Active treatment and active treatment control conditions.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Social Phobia Inventory score \> 29
Exclusion criteria
* receiving therapy * changes in the past 4 weeks with medication for emotional difficulties * psychotic symptoms
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) | Change in social anxiety symptoms from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks) | Self-report scale that measures Social anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 68 with higher scores indicating higher levels of social anxiety symptoms. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination(SAFE) | Change in safety behavior use from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks) | Self report scale used to assess how often people use safety behaviors to cope with their anxiety. Scores range from 33 to 165. Higher total scores are associated with more frequent safety behavior use. |
| Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R) | Change in mindfulness from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks) | Self-report used to measure mindfulness, including awareness of thoughts and feelings. Total scores range from 12 to 48 with higher scores indicating a greater ability to be mindful, present in the moment, and aware of thoughts and feelings. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed