An interventional study of Personal Values Intervention and Prosocial Values Intervention in Specific Phobia, sponsored by University of Cyprus. Completed at 1 site in Cyprus. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2022-03-29.
Sponsored by University of Cyprus · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
Exposure is considered the therapy of choice for specific phobias (SPs). Nevertheless, therapy engagement is extremely limited. SPs are maintained through avoidance of feared stimuli and as such willingness to approach what is feared constitutes a key factor that could explain limited treatment engagement. Values interventions, a key element of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), might be one way to increase engagement, yet to this date limited research exists in this area. For the purposes of the current study, two brief values interventions were developed: (a) a personal and (b) a prosocial one. These will be compared to (c) a no-instructions control in increasing willingness to approach and approach behaviour towards phobic stimuli. Ninety participants with flying phobia will be randomly allocated to one of the three groups. To measure willingness to engage with feared stimuli and approach behaviour two behavioural approach tasks using novel technologies (virtual reality), which aimed to expose participants to situations analogous to real life, were developed. Willingness and behavioural approach towards airplanes at a one month follow up will also be assessed.
Therefore, it is hypothesised that:
Participants in either of the two values intervention groups will have greater willingness to engage and approach behaviour towards feared stimuli compared to those in control at follow up.
Additionally, as prosocial values provide an evolutionary advantage, the second study aim was to identify if they lead to greater engagement with phobic stimuli compared to personal ones. Therefore, it was also hypothesised that:
85 studies on the registry are indexed under Phobia, Specific; 13 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 90 is above the median of 74 across 81 interventional studies indexed under Phobia, Specific.
Browse Phobia, Specific studies →University of Cyprus is the lead sponsor of 28 studies on the registry; 10 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Brief personal values intervention
Behavioral: Personal Values Intervention
Brief prosocial values intervention
Behavioral: Prosocial Values Intervention
No intervention control
A 15 minute personal values intervention. Aim is to help participants clarify their own values around flying and promote committed action towards airplanes.
A 15 minute prosocial values intervention. Aim is to help participants clarify their prosocial values around flying and promote committed action towards airplanes.
Willingness
In order to capture willingness to engage with feared stimuli three questions were employed, one question for each study task and one for follow up. For example to capture willingness to engage with the virtual reality behavioural approach task, participants were asked: "How willing are you to participate in a virtual reality task involving airplanes?". Answers for all three questions were rated on a scale from 1 (Not willing at all) to 10 (Extremely willing), with higher scores indicating greater willingness levels (i.e., total score: 1 - 10). This approach for developing willingness questions was based on other studies similarly aiming to capture willingness as part of their outcomes using a brief measure (e.g., Fink-Lamotte et al., 2020).
Time frame: Day 1 (During experimental tasks)
Virtual Reality Behavioural Approach Task (VR BAT)
The virtual reality (VR) behavioural approach task was developed for the current study to capture approach behaviour towards airplanes in VR. In total the task included seven steps. Each step depicted a different aspect of flying with associated VR visuals and sounds: 1) airplane stopped engine off, 2) airplane stopped engine running, 3) taxiing, 4) take off, 5) cruising, 6) turbulence and 7) landing, each lasting between 51 and 129 seconds. Approach behaviour was calculated by adding the number of steps participants completed in the VR BAT with total approach behaviour score ranging from 0 to 7.
Time frame: Day 1 (During experimental tasks)
Behavioural Willingness Assessment (BWA)
For this task, participants were presented with the option to book a short complementary flight. This was a categorical response variable: Participants could either book a flight or decline to participate. Booking a flight indicated approach behaviour towards airplanes.
Time frame: Day 1 (During experimental tasks)
Follow up Flying Behaviour
To measure approach behaviour towards airplanes outside the laboratory setting at a one month follow up, one question was employed ("In the past month, have you come in contact with airplanes in any way, such as taking a flight, or booking flight tickets or hotels abroad?") with a "yes" or "no" response (categorical response variable). An affirmative response indicated approach behaviour towards airplanes.
Time frame: One month follow up
Avoidance Behaviours
Total number of avoidance behaviours employed by the participants during the virtual reality behavioural approach task were tallied by the experimenter.
Time frame: Day 1 (During experimental tasks)
Plan to share: No
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This study is completed, as verified in Mar 2022. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of Cyprus