RecruitingACTRN12618001601224

Single Session Treatment for Specific Phobias in Pre-School Aged Children

One-Session Treatment for Specific Phobias in Pre-School Children: Improving access and long-term mental health outcomes

Sponsor

A/Prof Lara Farrell

Enrollment

208 participants

Start Date

Oct 9, 2018

Study Type

Interventional

Conditions

Specific Phobia

Summary

This study aims to treat young children between the ages of 3-5 years who are suffering from a specific phobia. Research to date suggests that whilst older children and adults can be successfully treated with a one session psychological treatment for phobias, it is currently unknown whether pre-school aged children will benefit and have long lasting effects from this intervention. The aim of this study is to engage children in a one session exposure treatment using a play based approach, and compare long term outcomes, relative to two other conditions -- a 6 month waitlist condition (monitoring only), as well as an education support intervention. This study is a randomized controlled trial, which means children are randomly assigned to one of three different conditions. The three conditions are; (1) a one-session cognitive-behavioural intervention with play therapy (P-OST); (2) an educational support intervention (EST); and (3) a 6 month waitlist control condition. If children in the EST or waitlist conditions continue to experience their phobia, they will be offered the one session cognitive-behavioural intervention at 12 months follow-up.

Eligibility

Sex: Both males and femalesMin Age: 3 Yearss

Inclusion Criteria1

(1) child aged 3 to 5 years; (2) current diagnosis of specific phobia; (3) willingness to cease concurrent psychotherapy; (4) parent willing to participate in therapy and assessments

Exclusion Criteria1

(1) child with a non-anxiety primary diagnosis; (2) comorbid autism (level 2 or 3) or other pervasive developmental disorder; (3) suspected intellectual disability or speech and language disorder; and (4) current use of psychotropic medication

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Interventions

One-session treatment (OST) for specific phobias involves a single 3-hour session of cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT). CBT involves education, gradual exposure to the child's phobic situation/object, participant modeling, reinforced practice, cognitive challenging through behavioural experiments, and reinforced practice. Given the children receiving treatment are young (3-5 years), play therapy techniques will also be implemented to enhance engagement and motivation for exposure therapy, including child directed free play, use of sentence stems and play sequences to provide eduaction and elicit child's phobic thoughts. Therapy is delivered by trained graduate students who are provisionally registered psychologists and undertaking post-graduate training in clinical psychology training. Treatment occurs at the clinic or in the participants home. The therapy is manualised and treatment procedures standardized across participants, however, tailored to address each child's individual fears and phobia.