The ECHO Study: Compassion-focused Therapy for Young Voice Hearers and Their Caregivers

University of Southern Denmark (SDU)

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Hallucinations, Auditory

Treatments: Behavioral: ECHO Manualized CFT treatment for young voice heares

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07314515

1852876

Details and patient eligibility

About

In this project, a 10-session treatment program was developed aimed at young people who experience voice hearing. The treatment has potential to easily be implemented in everyday clinical practice in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and eventually in Educational Psychological Counselling (PPR) and the newly established STIME services (low-threshold municipal treatment offers for children and young people).

As part of the treatment, the young person's caregivers are involved. This means a high degree of involvement from adults who know the young person well and are part of their daily life.

In addition to traditional Compassion-focuced therapy (CFT), the treatment is expanded with an intervention where an audio file is recorded with content corresponding to the adolescent's voice hearing. The parents are invited to listen to the audio file while participating in a therapy session. This will help improve the caregivers understanding of the young person's experiences and challenges.

Enrollment: 80 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 21 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• The participants should have been referred to a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital in Denmark .
• The participants have heard voices within the last 2 weeks.
• The participant can hear the content of the voices. The content takes the form of spoken works.
• A caregiver who can participate in 5 sessions

Exclusion criteria

• Participants has an estimated IQ under 70
• Participants who don't speak and understand Danish,
• Current drug misuse / abuse (during sessions)
• Brain injury or neurological disorder e.g. severe epilepsy
• Impaired vision or hearing to a degree that makes participation in therapy under normal conditions impossible.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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80 participants in 1 patient group

10 sessions manualized CFT treatment for young voice heares

Experimental group

Description:

60 voice hearing patients age 13-18 years old 20 patients with first-episode schizophrenia age 18-21

Treatment:

Behavioral: ECHO Manualized CFT treatment for young voice heares