False Safety Behavior Elimination Therapy: A Randomized Study of a Brief Individual Transdiagnostic Treatment for Anxiety Disorders

Florida State University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Panic Disorder; Generalized Anxiety Disorder; Social Anxiety Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Transdiagnostic Treatment (F-SET)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02082561

Florida State University

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of the current study was to test the efficacy of an individually administered, brief (5-session) transdiagnostic treatment for anxiety disorders. The current treatment (called F-SET) focuses chiefly on the elimination of anxiety maintaining behaviors and cognitive strategies (so-called "safety" aids) among individuals suffering from a range of anxiety disorders including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD) and panic disorder (PD). We hypothesized that the F-SET protocol would produce better overall outcome relative to a waitlist control.

Full description

The aim of the current study was to test the efficacy of an individually administered, brief (5-session) transdiagnostic treatment for anxiety disorders. The current treatment (called F-SET) focuses chiefly on the elimination of anxiety maintaining behaviors and cognitive strategies (so-called "safety" aids) among individuals suffering from a range of anxiety disorders including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD) and panic disorder (PD).

Four primary hypotheses were evaluated in the current study: (1) the F-SET protocol would produce better overall outcome relative to a waitlist control, (2) the F-SET protocol would yield clinically significant improvement of primary diagnosis symptoms as well as secondary diagnosis symptoms, (3) the F-SET protocol would create treatment improvement that is maintained during a 1 month follow-up interval and (4) given that reduction of safety aid use is the key mechanism of change in the F-SET treatment, a reduction in safety aid use will mediate the relationship between pre and post treatment.

Enrollment: 28 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must have a primary diagnosis of panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or social anxiety disorder.
• No change in medication type or dose during the 12 weeks prior to treatment

Exclusion criteria

• Current or past schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or organic mental disorder

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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28 participants in 2 patient groups

Transdiagnostic Treatment (F-SET)

Experimental group

Description:

F-SET treatment consisted of five weekly individual sessions (approximately 50 minutes each). The F-SET protocol is consistent with current CBT protocols for anxiety disorders.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Transdiagnostic Treatment (F-SET)

Waitlist

No Intervention group

Description:

The waitlist control condition was comprised of patients randomly assigned to the waitlist condition (WL). Individuals in this condition were reassessed after five weeks and were then offered treatment, but were no longer followed.