NCT03336112

Internet-delivered CBT for Patients With NCCP

Internet-delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment of Cardiac Anxiety in Patients With Non-cardiac Chest Pain - a Randomized Controlled Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 109 (actual)
• Sponsor: Linkoeping University · Other Government
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) is common and has substantial impact on patients' psychological wellbeing, quality of life and healthcare use. Although cardiac diagnosis is 'ruled out', many patients think they have an undetected cardiac disease (i.e. they suffer cardiac anxiety) as no other explanation is offered. They therefore avoid activities that they believe might be harmful to their heart, leading to greater ill-health, and increased healthcare use and societal costs. Targeting cardiac anxiety with psychological interventions might break this vicious circle and improve patient outcomes. Patients need to evaluate the way they perceive and handle their chest pain, which can be done with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The aim of this study is therefore to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of an Internet-delivered CBT (I-CBT) program on psychological distress and other patient-reported outcomes in patients with NCCP. A second aim is to explore factors related to implementation of I-CBT in clinical care. The study has a randomized controlled design comparing I-CBT with Internet-delivered information program. Quantitative methods will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the I-CBT program. Implementation issues will be evaluated from the perspectives of patients, healthcare professionals and policymakers using qualitative methods.

Conditions

• Non-cardiac Chest Pain
• Cardiac Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (I-CBT)	The intervention (I-CBT) will consist of 5 weeks of Internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy using three main parts. The first is psychoeducation that aims to educate the patients about chest pain and other causes than the cardiac ones. The other part concerns avoidance and exposure. This includes exposing the patients to physical activities that patients perceive as a threat to the heart. The third part contains awareness (mindfulness) training to teach the patients to have contact with the present moment despite chest pain and not trying to avoid it.
OTHER	Information program	Information program delivered by the Internet during 5 weeks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-11-01
• Primary completion: 2020-10-09
• Completion: 2021-07-31
• First posted: 2017-11-08
• Last updated: 2023-03-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Sweden