Acceptability/Feasibility Testing of SCAR

Status unconfirmed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Social Anxiety

In brief

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.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT04859790

Run by

Ohio University

People needed

36

Starts

2021-09-01

Expected to finish

2022-06-01

Last updated by the study team

2021-09-09

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Score ≥ 6 on the social concerns subscale of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 OR score ≥ 2 on the Social Phobia Scale-6

You may not qualify if…

• Suicidal ideation indicative of a need for hospitalization
• Uncontrolled manic or psychotic-spectrum symptoms
• Not having internet access or owning a smartphone
• Not fluent English speaker

Where it is running

• Ohio University — Athens, Ohio, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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