Self-efficacy Enhancement and Exposure Therapy

NCT ID: NCT03105024

Last Updated: 2018-04-11

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 71 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2017-03-22
• Study Completion Date: 2017-11-29

Brief Summary

Self-efficacy refers to the perceived belief to cope effectively, by personal efforts, with challenging situations and problems (Bandura, 1977). Basic research has shown that increases in perceived self-efficacy can enhance the extinction of fear (Zlomuzica et al., 2015). This study is aimed at translating these findings into a useful clinical application to augment exposure-based treatment outcome.

Detailed Description

In this study, the effects of self-efficacy enhancement on treatment outcome in patients with height phobia will be investigated.

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: i) virtual reality exposure + self-efficacy enhancement; ii) virtual reality exposure + control intervention; iii) virtual reality exposure only. The amount of exposure is identical across groups (i.e. maximum of 1 hour of exposure). The self-efficacy and the control intervention involve the retrieval of the exposure session with or without a focus on personal mastery experiences/achievements, respectively.

Treatment-induced changes as well as the effects of self-efficacy enhancement will be measured on the subjective level (i.e. in-vivo Behavioral Approach Tests, BATs; church tower), physiological level (heart rate during the BATs), and subjective level (subjective fear during the BATs as well as height-phobia related questionnaires) at each of the three assessments (i.e. pretreatment, after which the exposure will conducted on the same day, i.e. day 1; posttreatment, which is scheduled approximately 2-3 days after exposure, and follow-up assessment, which will take place 1-month after exposure).

Conditions

Specific Phobia

Study Design

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

Study Groups

Exposure + self-efficacy enhancement

After the virtual exposure session, participants will receive instructions to recall the exposure session with a focus on the personal mastery experiences/achievements made during exposure.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Self-efficacy enhancement

Intervention Type: OTHER

specific instructions regarding the retrieval of mastery experiences during exposure will be given (e.g., pointing out discrepancies between expected negative consequences and actual outcome during exposure; focus on achievements)

Exposure + control intervention

After the virtual exposure session, participants will receive instructions to recall the exposure session

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Control intervention

Intervention Type: OTHER

specific instructions regarding the retrieval of the exposure session will be given without an emphasis on personal mastery experience (e.g., description of details regarding the virtual reality environment)

Exposure only

Treatment as usual: no intervention after the exposure session will be given.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Self-efficacy enhancement

specific instructions regarding the retrieval of mastery experiences during exposure will be given (e.g., pointing out discrepancies between expected negative consequences and actual outcome during exposure; focus on achievements)

Intervention Type: OTHER

Control intervention

specific instructions regarding the retrieval of the exposure session will be given without an emphasis on personal mastery experience (e.g., description of details regarding the virtual reality environment)

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• specific phobia (acrophobia)
• normal or corrected vision

Exclusion Criteria

• somatic or neurological disease
• personality disorder
• bipolar disorder
• acute drug- or alcoholabuse
• pharmacological treatment within the past 4 weeks
• mental retardation
• any schizophrenic disease

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 38 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Ruhr University of Bochum

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Armin Zlomuzica

Dr. / Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Armin Zlomuzica, Dr.

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Ruhr-University Bochum

Locations

Mental Health Research and Treatment Center

Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Countries

Germany

References

Zlomuzica A, Preusser F, Schneider S, Margraf J. Increased perceived self-efficacy facilitates the extinction of fear in healthy participants. Front Behav Neurosci. 2015 Oct 16;9:270. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00270. eCollection 2015.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 26528152 (View on PubMed)

Bandura A. Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol Rev. 1977 Mar;84(2):191-215. doi: 10.1037//0033-295x.84.2.191. No abstract available.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 847061 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

FP 1-1

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id