Cognitive predictors of treatment outcome for exposure therapy: do changes in self-efficacy, self-focused attention, and estimated social costs predict symptom improvement in social anxiety disorder?
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BACKGROUND: Cognitions play an important role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). METHODS: = 36.9 years) diagnosed with SAD who received in vivo or virtual reality exposure therapy. RESULTS: Patients demonstrating a greater decrease in estimated social costs during treatment reported greater improvement of their social anxiety symptoms following both forms of exposure therapy. While changes in self-focused attention and social self-efficacy during treatment were significantly associated with treatment outcome when examined individually, these changes did not significantly predict symptom improvement beyond social costs. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in estimated social costs during treatment are associated with improvement of social anxiety symptoms after exposure therapy. Future research needs to further investigate estimated social costs as a predictor in relation to other cognitive variables. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01746667 ; www.clinicaltrials.gov, November 2012, retrospectively registered.
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Changes in attention focus may constitute a highly relevant process mechanism of therapeutic improvement during and after exposure therapy.
“even though changes in attention focus may constitute a highly relevant process mechanism of therapeutic improvement during and after exposure therapy (Gregory and Peters, 2017; Kampmann et al., 2019; Norton and Abbott, 2016; Wong et al., 2017; Hofmann, 2000)”
From Virtual Reality exposure therapy in the treatment of public speaking anxiety and social anxiety disorder (2024) · cites this paper as Kampmann et al., 2019
The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that reduced self-focused attention was associated with symptom improvement when examined alone and considers it a possible working mechanism of exposure therapy. But the association was not significant in the final model, and the authors say they tested associations, not causal mediation. The claim’s suggestion of a highly relevant process mechanism is therefore stronger than this study establishes. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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- Authors
- Kampmann, I. L., Emmelkamp, P. M. G., & Morina, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Münster (DE)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Kampmann, Isabel L.
- Venue
- BMC Psychiatry
- Published
- 2019-02-22
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 80-80
- ISSN
- 1471-244X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6387557
- OpenAlex
- W2917960171
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 4.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BMC Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- URN:NBN Resolver for Germany & Switzerland (German National Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (655.10.207)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychological Treatments and Assessments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- social anxiety disorder, exposure therapy, virtual reality exposure therapy, in vivo exposure, treatment outcome prediction, social self-efficacy, self-focus, cognitive predictors, symptom improvement
- MeSH terms
- Phobia, Social, Adult, Attention, Cognition, Fear, Female, Humans, Implosive Therapy, Male, Middle Aged, Retrospective Studies, Treatment Outcome, Self Efficacy, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy
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