There is a high need for prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders and for more accessible and affordable treatments. Targeting a risk factor for development and maintenance of multiple anxiety disorders may be an efficient way to prevent and treat anxiety. Anxiety sensitivity (AS)-the fear of anxiety sensations because of the belief that these sensations may lead to catastrophic outcomes-is a potent prevention and treatment target because it predicts development and maintenance of anxiety over time. Anxiety Sensitivity Amelioration Training (ASAT) is an ultra-brief, affordable treatment delivered virtually that targets AS. ASAT is a potent prevention and treatment protocol that reduces anxiety by reducing AS. However, the effect sizes were modest.
Adding Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) to the treatment could motivate the participants to apply skills they learned in treatment in a variety of real-life situations and to practice homework exercises. EMI delivers the intervention remotely in real-time and in natural settings, providing better learning through deeper processing. EMI alone is an effective treatment for anxiety and has been an efficacious enhancement to a 6-session treatment for generalized anxiety disorder. However, adding EMI to a 6-session panic disorder treatment did not improve the efficacy of the intervention. Because EMI can reduce anxiety as a stand-alone treatment and due to the inconclusive results about the efficacy of EMI as an added component, it is important to test the effect of adding EMI to the ASAT. We called the treatment including EMI the Brief Enhanced Anxiety Sensitivity Treatment (BEAST).
The goal of this study is to compare the efficacy of the BEAST with and without the EMI component. Interventions will be delivered to the adult community members and students in Athens, Ohio. Based on the power analysis, 75 adult participants will be recruited using email and online advertising. Based on methods used in the prior studies and the current design, inclusion criteria are elevated AS symptoms, access to a smartphone with internet connection. Exclusion criteria are heart disease, respiratory disorders, renal disease, seizure disorder, uncontrolled hypertension or migraines, current substance use disorder (severe), uncontrolled manic or psychotic symptoms, and suicidal ideation that requires hospitalization. All participants will receive a one-hour manualized group intervention educating about anxiety as an alarm system, the benign nature of anxiety sensations, myth-busting, and modifying biases about feared stimuli. The session will also include therapist-guided interoceptive exposure. Participants will be asked to do the exposure at home at least once a day for two weeks. For two weeks after the session, four times a day, the EMI group will receive prompts via the HIPAA-compliant EMI application (metricwire.com). The prompts will ask them about their current anxiety level. If they endorse elevated anxiety, they will be provided with a brief message reminding them about the coping skills covered during the session. They will also receive daily prompts to do exposures and enter the results in the app. The control group will not receive the EMI prompts and will be offered to complete EMI four weeks after the treatment. The intervention will be delivered by graduate students in a clinical Ph.D. program using Microsoft Teams, in groups of 4-6 participants.
AS and anxiety will be assessed using online questionnaires at baseline, at week two and week six after the delivery of the intervention session. Brief interview will be administered at baseline to assess the pathology listed in the exclusion criteria. Multilevel modeling will be used compare AS and anxiety between the groups at both follow-ups controlling for the baseline AS and anxiety. BEAST is an affordable intervention that can be used for prevention and treatment of anxiety and can be administered virtually. This is the first study testing the efficacy an added EMI component to a one-session-long anxiety intervention.
