Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Hair Cortisol Concentration

University of Granada (UGR)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Cognitive Therapy; Control

Treatments: Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03476200

STR2017

Details and patient eligibility

About

Stress is considered as a risk factor for physical and mental health. For this reason, interventional programs focused on stress management have been developed. These programs have proven to be efficacious modifying emotional variables and psychopathological symptoms. However, there are no studies showing how these interventions modify objective measures of stress. For example, measures reflecting Hipotalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis activity, the main system involved in the stress response. The activity of HPA axis is also altered by illness and psychopathology. Hair cortisol technique allows for changes assessment of HPA axis activity during months. Therefore, hair cortisol may be considered as an useful tool to measure changes of emotional variables related to stress in the long term. This measure of change over time of HPA axis activation together with related emotional variables assessment could be useful to evaluate the efficacy of interventional programs. For this reason, the aim of this research is to assess the effects of a cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) on perceived stress, resilience, worries, psychopathology and HPA axis activity through hair cortisol analysis.

Enrollment: 83 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Member of University of Granada, complete dominance of spanish, high levels of perceived stress.

Exclusion criteria

• Psychopathology, being under psychological treatment.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

83 participants in 2 patient groups

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Experimental group

Description:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy consisting of fourteen weekly group sessions, one hour and a half each, directed by two clinical psychologist.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Control Group with no intervention.