Text Message Treatment for Social Anxiety

Florida State University97 enrolled

Overview

This is an intervention study designed to evaluate a text message based safety behavior fading treatment for people with social anxiety disorder.

This study hopes to assess whether a month long text message based safety behavior fading protocol is effective in reducing safety behaviors and social anxiety symptoms. Over the course of four consecutive weeks, text messages will be sent to participants the first day of the study and every other day for four weeks (14 texts in total). These text messages will remind participants to either avoid using their three most engaged in safety behaviors (assessed at pre-treatment) or to stay present-focused. The past week frequency of the participants' safety behaviors will be assessed at the beginning of pre-treatment, post-treatment, and four week follow up assessments Participants will be asked to complete an additional online questionnaire for both a post-treatment and a 4-week post-treatment follow up assessment. We hypothesize that: 1) the safety behavior group will show a greater overall reduction in social anxiety symptoms, 2) that the safety behavior group will show a reduction in the frequency of safety behavior use, and 3) that the present-focused group will show an increase in mindfulness.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Social Anxiety

Interventions

Safety Behavior FadingBEHAVIORAL

Participants are asked to fade their three most common safety behaviors associated with their social anxiety

Present CenteredBEHAVIORAL

Participants are asked to try to increase their focus on the present.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 65 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Social Phobia Inventory score \> 29 Exclusion Criteria: * receiving therapy * changes in the past 4 weeks with medication for emotional difficulties * psychotic symptoms

Locations (1)

Florida State University, Department of Psychology

Tallahassee, Florida, United States

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN)

Self-report scale that measures Social anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 68 with higher scores indicating higher levels of social anxiety symptoms.

Time frame: Change in social anxiety symptoms from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks)

Secondary Outcomes

Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination(SAFE)

Self report scale used to assess how often people use safety behaviors to cope with their anxiety. Scores range from 33 to 165. Higher total scores are associated with more frequent safety behavior use.

Time frame: Change in safety behavior use from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks)

Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R)

Self-report used to measure mindfulness, including awareness of thoughts and feelings. Total scores range from 12 to 48 with higher scores indicating a greater ability to be mindful, present in the moment, and aware of thoughts and feelings.

Time frame: Change in mindfulness from baseline to post treatment (4 weeks) and one month follow up (8 weeks)

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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