One vs five sessions of exposure and five sessions of cognitive therapy in the treatment of claustrophobia.
Forty-six patients fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for claustrophobia were assessed with behavioral, physiological, and self-report measures. They were randomly assigned to four conditions: (1) one-session (E1); or (2) five-sessions of exposure (E5); (3) five-sessions of cognitive therapy (C5); and (4) Wait-list for 5 weeks. The first condition consisted of a single 3 h session of massed exposure, and condition 2 and 3 of 5 h of gradual treatment, which was done individually by very experienced therapists. The results showed that treatment was significantly better than the wait-list condition, and the three treatments did equally well with no differences between them. At post-treatment 79% of treatment patients vs 18% of the wait-list controls had improved to a clinically significant extent. When the three treatments were compared 80% in the E1-group, 81% in the E5-group, and 79% in the C5-group were clinically improved. At the 1 year follow-up the corresponding figures were 100%, 81%, and 93%, respectively. The implications of these results are discussed.
Ost
L G
LG
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Alm
T
T
Brandberg
M
M
Breitholtz
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D003887:Desensitization, Psychologic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007171:Implosive Therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*