Pilot Trial of a Transdiagnostic Blended Care Group for Anxiety in Adults

The transdiagnostic blended care group program will comprise of 8 sessions across 8 weeks, delivered via telehealth, by psychologists. The program is derived by cognitive behavioural therapy and includes psychoeducation about anxiety and management of physical symptoms of anxiety, graded exposure to overcome avoidance, behavioural experiments to test maladaptive beliefs, thought challenging to address unhelpful thoughts, communication skills to address assertiveness, distress tolerance, mindfulness and acceptance, and relapse prevention. Each week a new module will be presented during the group session and each session will take approximately 90 minutes. Participants will also have access to a smartphone application, myNewWay, and the group sessions have been designed to refer to activities and exercises in myNewWay for the participants to use the app in their own time between sessions. Participants will be encouraged to use the app between sessions to consolidate learning and practice new skills introduced during the group sessions. Participants will complete a measure of anxiety prior to the first weekly session, during week 4, and at the completion of the 8 weeks. Participants will also complete measures of social anxiety, panic, illness anxiety, depression, work and social functioning, and self-efficacy prior to the first week, during week 4, and at the completion of the 8 weeks. A group session rating scale and a measure of psychological distress will be completed each week by participants. These weekly scores will be monitored by clinicians and if a participant has an elevated score of distress, if it is clinically justified, the clinician may communicate with the participant to determine if additional support is needed. Strategies used to improve adherence to the intervention procedures include: automated email reminders, and verbal check-ins at each group session.