Metacognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety in Youth

Summary

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a fear of social situations that involve interacting with other people. Although it can be very upsetting, there are ways to help people deal with it. This study aims to explore the use of a new treatment called Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) for social anxiety in children and teenagers. MCT is a one-to-one talking therapy which works by changing people's patterns of attention and thinking in social situations. By doing this, people with SAD can begin to feel more confident and less anxious when interacting with others.

Findings suggests that MCT works well when treating adults who have social anxiety. However, this treatment has not yet been used with young people. This study hopes to explore whether MCT can help treat SAD in children and teenagers. This information will help us to plan larger studies in the future.

People who would like to take part in this study will be asked to fill in some questionnaires once a week for at least 2 weeks and return these to the researcher in the post. Following this, they will be offered 8 weekly sessions of MCT at their local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Each session will last for about 1 hour. This will involve talking to a clinician about how they think and feel when in social situations, and filling in some more questionnaires. This will allow us to see how their social anxiety changes week-by-week and whether this has improved by the end of treatment (week 8).

1-months after people have had their last session of MCT, they will be asked to complete and return a final set of questionnaires through the post. This will allow us to get a final measure of their social anxiety and see whether any changes in SAD have been maintained.

Primary Questions:

* Is MCT a feasible and acceptable treatment for social anxiety disorder within a child and adolescent population?
* Is MCT associated with improvements in SAD symptoms and functioning?

Secondary Questions:

* Are benefits associated with MCT replicable across subtypes of social anxiety disorder (general and specific)?
* Are any gains associated with MCT for social anxiety disorder maintained at 1 month follow up?

Conditions

• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Social Anxiety
• Social Phobia

Interventions

OTHER

Metacognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety

The transdiagnostic Metacognitive model posits that psychological disorder stems from the activation of a perseverative thinking style called the CAS (Cognitive Attentional Syndrome). This has 3 key elements: worry/rumination, threat-focussed attention and unhelpful coping behaviours. Each of these elements results in extended cognitive responses to negative thoughts, prolonging negative emotions and maintaining an individual's sense of threat. The CAS arises from an individual's positive and negative metacognitive beliefs (beliefs about cognition). Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) aims to bring the CAS under control by modifying metacognitive beliefs and enabling individuals to develop new reactions to negative thoughts.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of Manchester

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Adrian Wells · The University of Manchester

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-08-10

Primary Completion

2019-04-09

Completion

2019-04-11

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations