Experiential Training for Community Therapists

NCT03354975 | Completed

• 2 other identifiers: 260359F31MH112211
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 28
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of employing an experiential training approach that targets community mental health therapists' attitudes toward and use of exposure therapy. In addition to assessing attitudes and use of exposure therapy, the study will evaluate the feasibility of recruitment, randomization, retention, and assessment processes, as well as the acceptability of the experiential training relative to training-as-usual. To assess these outcomes, community therapists will be randomized to experiential training or training-as-usual. A subset of therapists from each arm will also complete qualitative interviews to further assess acceptability of the training approaches. The training-as-usual condition will include a traditional one-day workshop that focuses on principles of exposure and incorporates active learning strategies. The experiential training will include a one-day workshop that teaches principles of exposure and has therapists themselves undergo a one-session phobia treatment for spiders. Therapists in both training conditions will be asked to attend weekly consultation phone calls for a three-month period following the trainings.

Conditions

Anxiety

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Change from baseline Therapist Beliefs about Exposure Scale (TBES) at 3-month follow-up

  The Therapist Beliefs about Exposure Scale is a 21-item self-report measure that assesses therapists' negative beliefs about exposure therapy. Agreement with each item is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (disagree strongly) to 4 (agree strongly), yielding a total score ranging from 0 to 84. Higher scores indicate more negative beliefs about exposure.

  Pre-training; 3-month follow-up

• Change from baseline Exposure Therapy Clinical Use Survey (ETCUS) at 3-month follow-up

  The ETCUS measures therapist-reported use of nine exposure therapy procedures, such as providing the rationale for exposure therapy, creating a hierarchy, and completing in-vivo exposures.

  Pre-training; 3-month follow-up

Study Arms (2)

Experiential Training

EXPERIMENTAL

Behavioral: Experiential Training

Training-as-usual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Behavioral: Training-As-Usual

Interventions

Experiential Training BEHAVIORAL

Participants in the experiential training will be provided with information about using exposure therapy to treat patients with anxiety via lecture-style teaching. Then, they will themselves undergo a one-session phobia treatment for spiders.

Experiential Training

Training-As-Usual BEHAVIORAL

The training-as-usual condition will incorporate passive and active learning components. The first half of the training will include lecture-style teaching about using exposure therapy to treat patients with anxiety. The second half of training will incorporate active learning components (e.g., role plays) to reinforce concepts discussed in the first half of training.

Training-as-usual

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Participants will be aged 21 and older with degrees (masters or doctorate) in a mental health field. They must be working in a community mental health clinic, currently treating at least one client with anxiety, and planning to continue providing therapy to at least one client with anxiety for the duration of the study. Participants must be interested in participating in a training workshop and able to commit to the time requirements for study completion. They must also be willing to provide an email or mailing address to complete study-related surveys. Finally, they must be able to read and speak English.

You may not qualify if:

• Participants cannot have previously attended a full day (8+ hours) workshop on exposure-based treatments for anxiety.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Temple University: lead
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Temple University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19122, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Anxiety Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Mental Disorders

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 13, 2017
• First Posted: November 28, 2017
• Study Start: March 23, 2018
• Primary Completion: July 24, 2018
• Study Completion: November 1, 2018
• Last Updated: January 3, 2019

Record last verified: 2019-01

Locations

US (1)