specific phobia fear of flying/spiders
Conditions
Interventions
The intervention ZeroPhobia is 6-week self-help VRET for aviophobia and
arachnophobia that is delivered through a smartphone application (app) in
combination with rudimentary cardboard VR glasses. Z
Sponsors
Vrije Universiteit
Eligibility
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: - Aviophobia: scoring above 56 on the Flight Anxiety Situations questionnaire (FAS; van Gerwen et al., 1999; 2018; Nousi et al., 2008) - Arachnophobia: scoring above 80 on the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ; Szymanski & O*Donohue, 1995) - between 18-64 years old - have access to a smart phone and internet - must live in the Netherlands and have a Dutch telephone number - willing to participate in the research study and providing informed consent
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: - have insufficient knowledge of the Dutch language - *are under current treatment for specific phobia or psychotropic medication (unless on stable dosage for the previous 3 months and no changes planned during the study period)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The most important outcome measurements are the Fear of Flying Questionnaire, 'Flight Anxiety Situations questionnaire' (FAS; van Gerwen et al., 1999), and the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ, Szymanski & O*Donohue, 1995). The FAS is a 32-item self-report flight anxiety questionnaire. The anxiety subscale has a 7-point Likert-scale ('no anxiety' to 'very severe anxiety'). The total score can be between 0 - 115. The FSQ is a 18-item self report spider anxiety questionnaire. . | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| - Aviophobia: The self-report Flight Anxiety Modality questionnaire (FAM; van Gerwen et al., 1999) has 18 items measuring anxiety and anticipation anxiety symptoms in flight situations. The FAM has a 5-point Likert answering scale type, from 1 (com-pletely not) to 5 (very intense). The reliability is good (Nousi et al., 2008). - Questions related to aviophobia or arachnophobia: duration of the problem, amount of flights undertaken/interactions with spiders, safety behaviours, presence of negative flight/spider experiences (at baseline) and questions about whether participants have taken a flight/interacted with a spider after ZeroPhobia (post-test, follow-up) - Arachnophobia: The Spider Phobia Questionnaire (Klorman, Hastings, Weerts, Mela-med, & Lang, 1974), a 31-item self-report questionnaire for measuring spider anxiety. This questionnaire is often used for research into spider fear. The SPQ has been found to be high in internal consistency (Johnsen & Hugdahl, 1990). -Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck et al., 1988) is a 21-item self-report questionnaire assessing symptoms of anxiety. Patients record how much they have been bothered by each symptom during the past week, including the day the questionnaire is admin-istered. Each item is rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 = not at all to 3 = severely: I could barely stand it. The total score ranges from 0 to 63. The following guidelines are recommended for the interpretation of scores: 0 * 9, normal or no anx-iety; 10 * 18, mild to moderate anxiety; 19 * 29, moderate to severe anxiety; and 30 *63, severe anxiety. Internal consistency is high (0.90 * 0.94) and convergent validity is good (Brown et al., 1997). -The nine-item mood module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al, 2007) is used to screen subjects with depressive disorders. The 9 items are each scored 0 * 3, total score range is 0 * 27. In a review of Wittkampf et al. (Wittkampf et al., 2007), a sen | — |
Countries
Netherlands
Outcome results
None listed