Social Anxiety Virtual Reality Study

  • STATUS
    Recruiting
  • participants needed
    35
  • sponsor
    Stanford University
Updated on 19 February 2024
anxiety
anxiety disorder

Summary

This project aims to validate a virtual reality paradigm that assesses maladaptive avoidance behavior in social anxiety disorder. It also aims to generate a significant scientific advance by testing the hypothesis that maladaptive avoidance maintains anxiety through disruptions in safety learning.

Description

Although occasional mild social anxiety is a common human experience, social anxiety disorder has a devastating impact on patients' lives, leaving them vulnerable to medical, psychiatric, and socioeconomic complications. A key feature of social anxiety disorder is avoidance of social and/or performance situations in which judgment and evaluation from others might occur. Reducing avoidance is therefore an important treatment goal.

Despite the importance of avoidance, however, it is very difficult to assess a patient's tendency to avoid. Many prior assessments of avoidance measure adaptive (i.e., helpful) avoidance, in which an individual learns to avoid a truly noxious stimulus. However, anxiety disorders are characterized by maladaptive avoidance, in which a relatively safe stimulus is avoided resulting in interference with the individual's goals. In this study, the first aim is to validate a virtual reality paradigm to measure maladaptive avoidance behavior in adults with social anxiety disorder. The second aim is to test whether maladaptive avoidance behavior relates to safety learning (measured by a fear extinction task).

Details
Condition Claustrophobia, Phobia, Social
Age 18-100 years
Treatment No intervention
Clinical Study IdentifierNCT04288180
SponsorStanford University
Last Modified on19 February 2024

Eligibility

Yes No Not Sure

Inclusion Criteria

age 18+
primary diagnosis of social anxiety disorder
fluent spoken and written English
able to provide informed consent

Exclusion Criteria

history of manic episode, hypomanic episode, or psychosis
moderate or severe substance use disorder in the past 12 months
current major depressive episode greater than moderate severity (PHQ-9 score >14)
high risk for suicide (>8 on the MINI Suicidality section and/or clinician judgment that immediate medical attention is necessary)
general medical condition or impediment to vision, hearing, or motor function likely to interfere with assessments
benzodiazepine use in the past 2 weeks
cannabis use for anxiety management in the past 2 weeks
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Additional screening procedures may be conducted by the study team before you can be confirmed eligible to participate.

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If you are confirmed eligible after full screening, you will be required to understand and sign the informed consent if you decide to enroll in the study. Once enrolled you may be asked to make scheduled visits over a period of time.

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Complete your scheduled study participation activities and then you are done. You may receive summary of study results if provided by the sponsor.

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