Interactive E-Learning for Therapist Training in Exposure Therapy

Bradley Hospital

Status: Invitation-only

Conditions: ANXIETY DISORDERS (or Anxiety and Phobic Neuroses); Therapist Training

Treatments: Other: Therapist Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT07379853

R41MH139194 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The project involves the development of an eLearning platform to train therapists in the delivery of exposure therapy for clients with anxiety disorders and OCD. Following initial development, clinician end users will complete rounds of iterative feedback to inform final development, at which point, therapists will be recruited to complete the entire training program in an open trial.

Full description

Despite the existence of numerous well-established evidence-based practices (EBPs) for mental disorders, it has been difficult to disseminate these practices in community settings. Exposure therapy for anxiety disorders represents one of the most glaring examples of this research-to- practice gap. Many practicing therapists have never had the opportunity to receive training in exposure therapy and cite this as a primary barrier to its delivery. To address this gap, investigators need to rethink the way in which they train providers. Recent advances in e-learning offer an exciting opportunity to automate both the didactic and interactive components of these evidence-based training modules-an approach that has potential to vastly improve scalability, thus addressing a primary barrier to accessing the most potent treatment available for anxiety. In this project, the team will develop and initially test an automated eLearning approach for therapists learning exposure therapy. The investigators will leverage evidence-based training content and strategies from their prior work, as well as recent advances in eLearning (e.g., adaptive eLearning). The proposed Phase I STTR study will take place in three stages. Stage one (Development) is a nine-month development period during which PARC Innovations will build an alpha version of the training program in accordance with specifications from the research team and early input from a Multi-perspective Advisory Panel (MAP). The MAP (N=8) will consist of professionals with expertise in commercialization, education & e-learning, and/or technology. In Stage two (End- User Feedback and Optimization), a group of clinician end-users (N = 8) will interact with the platform and provide quantitative and qualitative feedback that will be synthesized by the research team into action items for further development. In stage three (Training Trial), therapists (N=40) will complete 8 hours of e-learning training (self-paced) over three weeks. Usability and training outcomes (e.g., therapist knowledge, self-efficacy) from this pilot trial will support a Phase II STTR project aimed at building out and broadly disseminating this eLearning approach.

Enrollment: 56 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 21 to 99 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• A practicing therapist providing psychotherapy
• Providing treatment for clients with anxiety conditions

Exclusion criteria

- Not employed as a mental health provider

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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56 participants in 1 patient group

Open Training Trial

Experimental group

Description:

Therapist will complete the entire eLearning training program

Treatment:

Other: Therapist Training