Development of a Disorder-Independant Anxiety Treatment

Norton, Peter

Abstract

This project will involve the development and preliminary empirical evaluation of a highly efficient cognitive-behavioral group treatment to address the core common features of anxiety-related disorders (Anxiety Treatment Protocol or ATP). Nearly one in four Americans experience an anxiety disorder during their lifetime with an annual cost of $42 billion per year in the U.S. Fortunately, effective treatments are available and a substantial proportion of the economic impact of anxiety disorders is avoidable through proper diagnosis and treatment. Although numerous empirically supported psychosocial and pharmacological approaches exist for the treatment of anxiety disorders, many individuals do not receive these treatments. A primary barrier to receiving the best psychosocial treatments is the lack of availability. This project will decrease the time and costs to learn new interventions, and is one strategy that is likely to overcome mental health providers? resistance to the adoption of empirically supported treatments. Recent reconceptualizations of anxiety-related disorders emphasize the shared commonalities among the anxiety disorders, rather than emphasizing the differences between the disorders. This theoretical work and a review of the empirically supported disorder-specific interventions will guide the development of a broad-spectrum group intervention in which individuals with a variety of anxiety disorders will be treated together. The project has two phases - (1) development of the treatment protocol, and (2) initial open trial with pretreatment/posttreatment assessment followed by protocol revisions. The development of a broad-spectrum intervention has several advantages including: (1) improved dissemination as this intervention will be more cost-effective than learning separate treatment protocols for each anxiety disorder; (2) reduced costs to consumers by using a group modality; (3) matching an intervention strategy to the most recent theoretical work in anxiety; and (4) simplifying treatment for individuals with multiple anxiety disorders (up to 60 percent of cases).