MedTrace Logo

Acceptability/Feasibility Testing of SCAR

NCT04859790 · Status: UNKNOWN · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 36

Last updated 2021-09-09

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a prominent mental health burden, affecting more than 24 million Americans annually. Social anxiety is worsened by social isolation and severe, ongoing stress. Therefore, it is expected that the COVID-19 pandemic will significantly increase social anxiety symptoms and related impairment. Left untreated, social anxiety typically has a chronic course and a substantial impact on wellbeing. Despite the considerable impact of social anxiety, treatment for social anxiety is underutilized compared to other anxiety disorders, likely due to the distress socially anxious individuals experience upon presenting to treatment. Thus, treatments that are accessible and effective in treating social anxiety are needed. One potential to augment existing treatments for SAD is to develop brief, single-session interventions that could be administered virtually. These interventions could then be combined with additional technological innovations, such as ecological momentary intervention (EMI), to reduce social anxiety. Further, interventions targeting causal risk factors for social anxiety may be particularly beneficial, as these approaches could be used in both prevention and treatment efforts. One risk factor that represents an ideal target for interventions is anxiety sensitivity social concerns (ASSC), defined as the fear of publicly observable symptoms of anxiety (i.e., blushing, trembling, sweating). Although ASSC has been shown to be a risk factor for social anxiety, no interventions have been developed to target ASSC. In the proposed study, a brief (1 hour) virtual intervention targeting ASSC using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques will be developed through examining the acceptability and feasibility of the SCAR intervention prototype. The proposed project holds the promise of developing an intervention to reliably reduce the impact of ASSC, both as a standalone intervention and in combination with other therapeutic approaches.

Conditions

  • Social Anxiety

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Social Concerns Appraisal Retraining

SCAR consists of an hour-long intervention session, followed by a 2-week-long EMI. During the hour-long intervention session, participants will receive psychoeducation (e.g., defining common terms like anxiety), discuss popular misconceptions they may have about publicly observable anxiety symptoms (e.g., "people can tell I'm anxious by looking at me"), and complete exposure exercises (e.g., practicing facing feared physical sensations such as sweating). During the EMI, participants will report on their social anxiety symptoms four times per day. When participants endorse elevated social anxiety during this time, they will receive a targeted message reminding them of the topics covered in the intervention session.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Ohio University

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-09-01
Primary Completion
2022-06-30
Completion
2022-06-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04859790 on ClinicalTrials.gov