Glucocorticoid Treatment for Social Phobia

Summary

Social phobia is the third most common psychiatric disorder besides depression and alcoholism. Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of social phobia. Nevertheless, there is no effect in a third of the people at the existing treatment methods. Pharmacological therapies have similar effects, but there is a high rate of relapse after discontinuation of medication.

Social phobia is characterized by fear of performance or interaction situations. The strong fear of negative evaluation by others is usually accompanied by a marked avoidance behavior and increased physical symptoms such as blushing, sweating, palpitations, or tremors. The confrontation with a phobic stimulus leads to a retrieval of stimulus-associated aversive memories, resulting in an immediate anxiety response. Several studies had already shown that elevated glucocorticoids impair retrieval of declarative memory contents in healthy subjects. The investigators demonstrated an anxiety-reducing effect after the administration of cortisone before the confrontation with a phobic stimulus in patients with social and spider phobia.

Conditions

• Phobic Disorders
• Phobias

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

CBGT

Cognitive-behavioral group therapy

DRUG

Hydrocortisone

3 x 20 mg Hydrocortisone (oral, 60 min. before MRI1, 60 min. before exposition in CBGT1 and 60 min. before exposition in CBGT2)

DRUG

Placebo

Placebo (oral, 60 min. before MRI1, 60 min. before exposition in CBGT1 and 60 min. before exposition in CBGT2)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Basel

  collaborator OTHER

• Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Leila M Soravia, PhD · Department of Psychiatric Neurophysiology, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

20 Years

Max Age

55 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2009-07-31

Primary Completion

2012-03-31

Completion

2012-04-30

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations