Clinical trial NCT05333783: Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy for Cynophobia
Official title: Treating Cynophobia With Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Phobia Animal
Lead sponsor: Koç University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Wayne State University
First posted: 2022-04-19
Enrollment: 18
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The feasibility study for the Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy for Cynophobia will be carried out for people with dog phobia. This feasibility study's sample will be adults living in Turkey. The informed consent form and demographic form will be sent to the participants who have given this approval. Those who are eligible will be invited to diagnostic interviews. Those participants who meet the inclusion criteria will be included in the feasibility study. 22 participants are expected to participate in this study. The phobia severity will be measured three times: once before and twice after the intervention.

Detailed description: Specific phobia is an overwhelming fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. For the treatment of specific phobias, exposure therapy is accepted as the most effective way to treat the patients and it is frequently used by psychiatrists and psychotherapists. To treat specific phobias using exposure therapy, the patients are exposed to their feared objects or situations in a safe and controlled environment while they are guided and accompanied by a therapist. It is not always possible to conduct in vivo treatment however, due to a number of reasons such as the feared objects being unavailable, cost-effectiveness, patients with extremely high anxiety etc. Results of the former studies revealed that specific phobias can be treated using Augmented Reality (AR) where patients are exposed to virtually created feared objects in real life context. There are limited studies that have been conducted to test the effectiveness of AR because it is a newly developed technology. Former studies used AR to treat phobia of smaller object such as fear of cockroaches, insects and spiders. The current study aims to test whether AR is a successful tool that can be utilized as a treatment option for people with specific disorders. More specifically, we aim to test the effectiveness of Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy (ARET) in the treatment of patients with cynophobia, i.e., fear of dogs.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Clinician-confirmed Dog Phobia
* Scoring 10 or higher on the Specific Phobia Scale (Adult version)

Exclusion Criteria:

* Psychosis and/or Substance Use Disorder
* Epileptic Seizure History
* Uncorrected Visual Impairment

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change of the Behavioral Approach Task (BAT) scores over time.
timeFrame: [Change from baseline (Before the intervention) to post assessment (1 week and 1 month after the pre-assessment) ]
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change of the Specific Phobia Scale (SPS) Turkish version scores over time.
timeFrame: [Change from baseline (Before the intervention) to post assessment (1 week and 1 month after the pre-assessment) ]
measure: Change of the Skin Conductance scores over time.
timeFrame: [Change from baseline (Before the intervention) to post assessment (1 week and 1 month after the pre-assessment) ]
measure: Change of the Subjective Unit of Distress scores over time.
timeFrame: [Change from baseline (Before the intervention) to post assessment (1 week and 1 month after the pre-assessment) ]
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Istanbul
country: Turkey
facility: Koc University
Study officials:
affiliation: Koç University
name: Can Anarat, MA
role: STUDY_CHAIR
affiliation: Koç University
name: Ekin Cakir, PhD
role: STUDY_CHAIR
References:
citation: Javanbakht A, Madaboosi S, Grasser LR. Real-life contextualization of exposure therapy using augmented reality: A pilot clinical trial of a novel treatment method. Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2021 Nov;33(4):220-231. doi: 10.12788/acp.0042.