NCT03505437

Effects of Stress on Exposure Therapy

The Impact of Stress on Exposure-based Treatment Outcome

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 48 (actual)
• Sponsor: Ruhr University of Bochum · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 18 Years – 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study investigates whether stress can augment exposure therapy outcome in patients with specific phobia (spider phobia).

Detailed description

Stress has been shown to modulate fear extinction. The present study is aimed at investigating whether stress (administered prior to exposure with the socially evaluated cold pressor test) augments exposure therapy outcome in patients with specific phobia (spider phobia). Furthermore, the effects of stress on the generalization of exposure-induced symptom reduction towards untreated fear stimuli (i.e. cockroaches) will be explored. Participants are randomly assigned to the cold or warm water condition of the socially evaluated cold pressor test (SECPT; Schwabe et al., 2008). Thereafter, participants of both conditions receive 45 minutes of in-vivo exposure to spiders. The effects of stress on exposure-based anxiety reductions toward spiders (treated fear stimulus) and cockroaches (untreated fear stimulus to assess generalization of treatment outcome) are assessed on the behavioral, subjective and physiological level at pretreatment, posttreatment (24 hours after exposure) and follow-up (4 weeks after exposure).

Conditions

• Specific Phobia

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Cold water condition	Cold water condition of the SECPT. Participants immerse their hand into ice-cold water (0-3°C). During the SECPT, participants are videotyped and monitored. After the SECPT, participants will receive 45 minutes of in-vivo exposure to spiders
OTHER	Warm water condition	Warm water condition of the SECPT. Participants immerse their hand into warm water (36-37°C). Participants are neither videotyped nor monitored during the whole procedure. After the SECPT, participants will receive 45 minutes of in-vivo exposure to spiders.

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-04-20
• Primary completion: 2019-05-30
• Completion: 2019-08-30
• First posted: 2018-04-23
• Last updated: 2019-09-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Germany