Study Results
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Basic Information
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COMPLETED
NA
73 participants
INTERVENTIONAL
2022-02-09
2022-07-04
Brief Summary
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Detailed Description
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Adding Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) to the treatment could motivate the participants to apply skills they learned in treatment in a variety of real-life situations and to practice homework exercises. EMI delivers the intervention remotely in real-time and in natural settings, providing better learning through deeper processing. EMI alone is an effective treatment for anxiety and has been an efficacious enhancement to a 6-session treatment for generalized anxiety disorder. However, adding EMI to a 6-session panic disorder treatment did not improve the efficacy of the intervention. Because EMI can reduce anxiety as a stand-alone treatment and due to the inconclusive results about the efficacy of EMI as an added component, it is important to test the effect of adding EMI to the ASAT. We called the treatment including EMI the Brief Enhanced Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment (BEAST).
The goal of this study is to compare the efficacy of the BEAST with and without the EMI component. Interventions will be delivered to the adult community members and students in Athens, Ohio. Based on the power analysis, 75 adult participants will be recruited using email and online advertising. Based on methods used in the prior studies and the current design, inclusion criteria are elevated AS symptoms, access to a smartphone with internet connection. Exclusion criteria are heart disease, respiratory disorders, renal disease, seizure disorder, uncontrolled hypertension or migraines, current substance use disorder (severe), uncontrolled manic or psychotic symptoms, and suicidal ideation that requires hospitalization. All participants will receive a one-hour manualized group intervention educating about anxiety as an alarm system, the benign nature of anxiety sensations, myth-busting, and modifying biases about feared stimuli. The session will also include therapist-guided interoceptive exposure. Participants will be asked to do the exposure at home at least once a day for two weeks. For two weeks after the session, four times a day, the EMI group will receive prompts via the HIPAA-compliant EMI application (metricwire.com). The prompts will ask them about their current anxiety level. If they endorse elevated anxiety, they will be provided with a brief message reminding them about the coping skills covered during the session. They will also receive daily prompts to do exposures and enter the results in the app. The control group will not receive the EMI prompts and will be offered to complete EMI four weeks after the treatment. The intervention will be delivered by graduate students in a clinical Ph.D. program using Microsoft Teams, in groups of 4-6 participants.
AS and anxiety will be assessed using online questionnaires at baseline, at week two and week six after the delivery of the intervention session. Brief interview will be administered at baseline to assess the pathology listed in the exclusion criteria. Multilevel modeling will be used compare AS and anxiety between the groups at both follow-ups controlling for the baseline AS and anxiety. BEAST is an affordable intervention that can be used for prevention and treatment of anxiety and can be administered virtually. This is the first study testing the efficacy an added EMI component to a one-session-long anxiety intervention.
Conditions
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Study Design
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RANDOMIZED
PARALLEL
Treatment group (EMI group): For two weeks after the session, four times a day, the EMI group will receive prompts via the HIPAA-compliant EMI application (metricwire.com). The prompts will ask them about their current anxiety level. If they endorse elevated anxiety, they will be provided with a brief message reminding them about the coping skills covered during the session. They will also receive daily prompts to do exposures and enter the results in the app.
Control group: The control group will not receive EMI prompts and will be offered to complete EMI after the follow-up assessment.
TREATMENT
NONE
Study Groups
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EMI group
For two weeks after the intervention session, participants will report on their anxiety level four times per day. When participants endorse elevated anxiety, they will receive a message relevant to their most stressful symptom at the moment reminding them of the topics covered in the intervention session.
As the efficacy of the EMI component is being tested, only the EMI group will receive EMI.
Brief Enhanced Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment (Group BEAST)
Group BEAST consists of a 1.5-hour-long intervention session, followed by a 2-week-long EMI. During the intervention session, participants will receive psychoeducation (e.g., defining common terms like anxiety and stress), discuss popular misconceptions they may have about anxiety symptoms, and complete exposure exercises (e.g., practicing facing feared physical sensations such as trembling or elevated heart rate). Homework exposure exercises will be completed by all participants. They will receive phone app reminders about completing homework.
Only the EMI group will receive EMI prompts and intervention.
Control group
The control group will not receive EMI prompts and will be offered to complete EMI after the follow-up assessment.
Control group Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment
Control group Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment consists of a 1.5-hour-long intervention session, followed by a 2-week-long EMI. During the intervention session, participants will receive psychoeducation (e.g., defining common terms like anxiety and stress), discuss popular misconceptions they may have about anxiety symptoms, and complete exposure exercises (e.g., practicing facing feared physical sensations such as trembling or elevated heart rate). Homework exposure exercises will be completed by all participants. They will receive phone app reminders about completing homework.
Interventions
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Brief Enhanced Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment (Group BEAST)
Group BEAST consists of a 1.5-hour-long intervention session, followed by a 2-week-long EMI. During the intervention session, participants will receive psychoeducation (e.g., defining common terms like anxiety and stress), discuss popular misconceptions they may have about anxiety symptoms, and complete exposure exercises (e.g., practicing facing feared physical sensations such as trembling or elevated heart rate). Homework exposure exercises will be completed by all participants. They will receive phone app reminders about completing homework.
Only the EMI group will receive EMI prompts and intervention.
Control group Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment
Control group Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment consists of a 1.5-hour-long intervention session, followed by a 2-week-long EMI. During the intervention session, participants will receive psychoeducation (e.g., defining common terms like anxiety and stress), discuss popular misconceptions they may have about anxiety symptoms, and complete exposure exercises (e.g., practicing facing feared physical sensations such as trembling or elevated heart rate). Homework exposure exercises will be completed by all participants. They will receive phone app reminders about completing homework.
Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria
* have access to a device smartphone with internet connection.
Exclusion Criteria
* respiratory disorders (asthma, COPD, other),
* renal disease,
* epilepsy or other seizure disorder,
* and uncontrolled hypertension or migraines.
* current substance use disorder (severe),
* uncontrolled manic symptoms,
* uncontrolled psychotic symptoms,
* suicidal ideation that requires hospitalization,
* if the participants endorse that English is not their first language in the screening questionnaire and demonstrate significant impairment in understanding the interviewer, they will be considered not proficient in English and will be excluded from the study.
18 Years
ALL
Yes
Sponsors
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Ohio University
OTHER
Responsible Party
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Nicholas Allan
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology
Locations
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Ohio University
Athens, Ohio, United States
Countries
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References
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Allan NP, Capron DW, Lejuez CW, Reynolds EK, MacPherson L, Schmidt NB. Developmental trajectories of anxiety symptoms in early adolescence: the influence of anxiety sensitivity. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2014 May;42(4):589-600. doi: 10.1007/s10802-013-9806-0.
Goetter EM, Frumkin MR, Palitz SA, Swee MB, Baker AW, Bui E, Simon NM. Barriers to mental health treatment among individuals with social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Psychol Serv. 2020 Feb;17(1):5-12. doi: 10.1037/ser0000254. Epub 2018 Aug 2.
Heron KE, Smyth JM. Ecological momentary interventions: incorporating mobile technology into psychosocial and health behaviour treatments. Br J Health Psychol. 2010 Feb;15(Pt 1):1-39. doi: 10.1348/135910709X466063. Epub 2009 Jul 28.
Kenardy JA, Dow MG, Johnston DW, Newman MG, Thomson A, Taylor CB. A comparison of delivery methods of cognitive-behavioral therapy for panic disorder: an international multicenter trial. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2003 Dec;71(6):1068-75. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.71.6.1068.
Keough ME, Schmidt NB. Refinement of a brief anxiety sensitivity reduction intervention. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2012 Oct;80(5):766-72. doi: 10.1037/a0027961. Epub 2012 Apr 2.
Kessler RC, Aguilar-Gaxiola S, Alonso J, Chatterji S, Lee S, Ormel J, Ustun TB, Wang PS. The global burden of mental disorders: an update from the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) surveys. Epidemiol Psichiatr Soc. 2009 Jan-Mar;18(1):23-33. doi: 10.1017/s1121189x00001421.
Kessler RC, Petukhova M, Sampson NA, Zaslavsky AM, Wittchen H -U. Twelve-month and lifetime prevalence and lifetime morbid risk of anxiety and mood disorders in the United States. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2012 Sep;21(3):169-84. doi: 10.1002/mpr.1359. Epub 2012 Aug 1.
LaFreniere LS, Newman MG. A BRIEF ECOLOGICAL MOMENTARY INTERVENTION FOR GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF THE WORRY OUTCOME JOURNAL. Depress Anxiety. 2016 Sep;33(9):829-39. doi: 10.1002/da.22507. Epub 2016 Apr 7.
Newman MG, Przeworski A, Consoli AJ, Taylor CB. A randomized controlled trial of ecological momentary intervention plus brief group therapy for generalized anxiety disorder. Psychotherapy (Chic). 2014 Jun;51(2):198-206. doi: 10.1037/a0032519. Epub 2013 Sep 23.
Schmidt NB, Capron DW, Raines AM, Allan NP. Randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of a brief intervention targeting anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2014 Dec;82(6):1023-33. doi: 10.1037/a0036651. Epub 2014 May 12.
Schmidt NB, Eggleston AM, Woolaway-Bickel K, Fitzpatrick KK, Vasey MW, Richey JA. Anxiety Sensitivity Amelioration Training (ASAT): a longitudinal primary prevention program targeting cognitive vulnerability. J Anxiety Disord. 2007;21(3):302-19. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.06.002. Epub 2006 Aug 4.
Schmidt NB, Mitchell MA, Richey JA. Anxiety sensitivity as an incremental predictor of later anxiety symptoms and syndromes. Compr Psychiatry. 2008 Jul-Aug;49(4):407-12. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2007.12.004. Epub 2008 Mar 19.
Wang PS, Lane M, Olfson M, Pincus HA, Wells KB, Kessler RC. Twelve-month use of mental health services in the United States: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005 Jun;62(6):629-40. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.629.
Other Identifiers
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Group_BEAST
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: org_study_id