Metacognitive Therapy for Health Anxiety

NCT ID: NCT02404116

Last Updated: 2017-02-07

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 21 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2015-03-31
• Study Completion Date: 2017-01-31

Brief Summary

The study involves a comparing a new psychological treatment- Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) which has shown promising results in the treatment of health anxiety to no treatment at all- a waiting list.

Detailed Description

Hypochondriasis or severe health anxiety is characterised by excessive, disproportionate and persistent thoughts, behaviour and emotion focused on physical symptoms and/or fear of developing a serious illness. There is often excessive worry about illness or disease in the absence of supporting medical evidence and contrary to continual medical reassurance.

The most effective psychological treatments are cognitive and behavioural therapies (CBT). However, CBT has failed to demonstrate consistent gains in the treatment of this disorder.

A newer form of psychological therapy, Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) has shown to be more effective than CBT in the treatment of anxiety disorders and depression. MCT is based on the principle that health anxiety is caused by a pattern of extended thinking, this pattern is called the Cognitive Attentional Syndrome (CAS). The CAS is made up of chains of verbal thought in the form of excessive worry about having an illness; a pattern of focusing attention on threat, such as scanning the body for signs of illness and excessive body checking; and coping strategies that have negative effects, such as internet searching for illnesses or trying to block out thoughts of illness. Rather than stopping negative thinking the CAS extends it and leads to the belief that illness is present. To help reduce these symptoms MCT teaches specific techniques that help people develop new ways of experiencing negative thoughts about illnesses, allow them to abandon worry and learn to disengage from unhelpful coping attempts.

A recent small study has provided some limited evidence that metacognitive therapy (MCT) can be applied to cases of hypochondriasis and demonstrated that the therapy was associated with improvement in symptoms.

To provide future evaluation of MCT in this client group a more definitive trial will be carried out to ascertain the effects of MCT in a larger group when compared to a control group.

If the results are positive this will provide a rationale for a larger research study, which will compare MCT with evidence based treatment such as CBT.

Conditions

Hypochondriasis

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Metacognitive Therapy

12 weeks of Metacognitive Therapy

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Metacognitive Therapy

Intervention Type: OTHER

Participants will receive treatment which focus's on helping reduce excessive thinking about health,

Wait List Control

The Waiting list control will control for time and repeated assessments during an initial 12 week period

Group Type: OTHER

Wait List

Intervention Type: OTHER

Individuals are on a waiting list

Interventions

Metacognitive Therapy

Participants will receive treatment which focus's on helping reduce excessive thinking about health,

Intervention Type: OTHER

Wait List

Individuals are on a waiting list

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Be over 18.
• Exceed cut off on BP and WI
• Not undergoing any other form of psychological therapy during treatment.
• If on medication must be stable six weeks prior to treatment onset.
• Willing to undergo randomisation
• Provide written consent

Exclusion Criteria

• Be under 18
• Not exceeding cut off on BP and WI
• Undergone CBT for health anxiety over the past three months.
• Having started medication less than four weeks before assessment
• Not willing to undergo randomisation
• Not willing to provide written consent

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 65 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Manchester

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Robin Bailey

Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Robin Bailey, MSc

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Manchester

Locations

University of Central Lancashire

Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom

University of Manchester

Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Countries

United Kingdom

Other Identifiers

: z83hdhmg

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id