Preliminary Study of Efficacy and Safety of Self-Administered Virtual Exposure Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder vs. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.

ABSTRACT: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most frequent mental disorders. Exposure to virtual reality can be a solution complementing standard CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) or can be used as an independent therapeutic tool. The study's objective was to assess the safety and efficacy of using self-administered virtual reality exposure vs. CBT and CBT with virtual exposure. We assessed the efficacy of the applied intervention with the Leibowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). We compared three groups: CBT (n = 25), CBT + VR (n = 29), and self-administered therapy without aid of a therapist (n = 19). The results indicated that all three groups showed changes on the LSAS. The simple effect analysis showed that there were no differences between experimental conditions a

SUBMITTER: Stefaniak I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9496986 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature