School-based Treatment of Social Anxiety With Developmentally Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder

Summary

The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to find out whether the brief, 10-session Developmentally Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder (DOCT-SAD) is more effective than standard counseling (SC) to treat Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) among 12 to 17-year-old adolescents with SAD.

Potential participants for the study are identified from school health and well-being services (SHWS). The DOCT-SAD is delivered by method-trained school psychologists working in the SHWS. SC will be provided by non-method-trained SHWS professionals (i.e. school nurses, social workers or school psychologists) according to their routine counselling practice.

The main research questions of the study are:

1. Is DOCT-SAD more effective than SC for alleviating symptoms of social anxiety?
2. Is DOCT-SAD more effective than SC to produce diagnostic remission from primary SAD and alleviating symptom severity associated with SAD?
3. Is DOCT-SAD more effective than SC for alleviating co-occurring depressive symptoms, interference in daily functioning due to worry or fears, and for increasing general well-being, positive mental health, and for improving the quality of life among adolescents with SAD?

Researchers will compare DOCT-SAD with SC to see if DOCT-SAD is effective in the treatment of SAD in adolescents.

Participants will:

* be treated either with DOCT-SAD or SC for 10 weeks.
* be followed up and assessed clinically at six-month and twelve-month follow-up points.

Conditions

• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Social Anxiety
• Adolescent - Emotional Problem

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

DOCT-SAD

Developmentally Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder is a 10-session, combined individual/group clinical intervention for treating social anxiety in adolescents. It consists of four individual and six group sessions during ten weeks. DOCT-SAD groups are formed for 4-6 adolescnts. One parent or both parents attend two of the individual sessions.

BEHAVIORAL

SC

Standard Counseling (SC) is a intervention consisting of counseling sessions delivered by a school health and welfare (SHWS) professional (i.e., school nurse, school social worker, or school psychologist) to support a student with social anxiety. The defined length of intervention is ten weeks, and number of sessions will be according to what is routinely agreed between the professional and the adolescent. In SC, routine professional working methods and procedures available to the SHWS professional delivering the intervention are used.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Helsinki

  collaborator OTHER

• Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of Eastern Finland

  collaborator OTHER

• Klaus Ranta

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Klaus Ranta, MD, PhD · Tampere University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-03-20

Primary Completion

2027-12-31

Completion

2028-12-31

Countries

• Finland

Study Locations