(provided by candidate): This Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23) will enable Dr. Weisberg to begin a programmatic line of research in the development and evaluation of intervention programs for medical patients with anxiety disorders. Her emphasis will be on developing a cognitive behavioral group treatment for primary care patients with anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and impairing. Individuals seeking help for anxiety are more likely to be seen in primary care than in mental health settings, and the majority of these patients do not receive adequate treatment. Dr. Weisberg's training goals include: (1) broadening her knowledge and experience in treatment development, with a focus on developing and evaluating treatments for anxiety disorders in medical settings; (2) acquiring expertise in conducting interventions in primary care settings; (3) expanding her understanding of the conduct of treatment outcome studies; and (4) further developing her statistical skills, with particular emphasis on techniques relevant to intervention / clinical trials research. These training goals will be achieved through (1) the resources available at Brown Medical School; (2) the high quality mentorship provided by Drs. Martin Keller, Michelle Craske, Kay Dickersin, and the expertise of the assembled consultant team (Drs. David Barlow, Charles Eaton, and Robert Stout); (3) focused coursework, training, and clinical experiences; and (4) the proposed research project. The proposed research plan involves developing and empirically testing a new treatment for primary care patients with panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and/or social anxiety disorder. The new treatment, Learning to Ease Anxiety in Primary care (LEAP) will incorporate methods universal to CBT for specific anxiety disorders (i.e., cognitive restructuring and exposure) and adapted for primary care patients with a range of anxiety diagnoses. The specific research aims are to: (1) develop the LEAP treatment, its manual, therapist training procedures, and treatment fidelity measures and (2) conduct a randomized, controlled pilot study comparing LEAP to treatment as usual, in order to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed treatment, and obtain a treatment effect size to support an examination of the protocol in a future, larger trial. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23)
Project #
5K23MH069595-05
Application #
7447384
Study Section
Interventions Research Review Committee (ITV)
Program Officer
Wynne, Debra K
Project Start
2004-07-25
Project End
2010-10-31
Budget Start
2008-07-01
Budget End
2010-10-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$185,413
Indirect Cost
Name
Brown University
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
001785542
City
Providence
State
RI
Country
United States
Zip Code
02912
Beard, Courtney; Weisberg, Risa B; Primack, Jennifer (2012) Socially anxious primary care patients' attitudes toward cognitive bias modification (CBM): a qualitative study. Behav Cogn Psychother 40:618-33
Ramsawh, Holly J; Weisberg, Risa B; Dyck, Ingrid et al. (2011) Age of onset, clinical characteristics, and 15-year course of anxiety disorders in a prospective, longitudinal, observational study. J Affect Disord 132:260-4
Bjornsson, Andri S; Dyck, Ingrid; Moitra, Ethan et al. (2011) The clinical course of body dysmorphic disorder in the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Project (HARP). J Nerv Ment Dis 199:55-7
Moitra, Ethan; Beard, Courtney; Weisberg, Risa B et al. (2011) Occupational impairment and Social Anxiety Disorder in a sample of primary care patients. J Affect Disord 130:209-12
Beard, Courtney; Moitra, Ethan; Weisberg, Risa B et al. (2010) Characteristics and predictors of social phobia course in a longitudinal study of primary-care patients. Depress Anxiety 27:839-45
Beard, Courtney; Weisberg, Risa B; Keller, Martin B (2010) Health-related Quality of Life across the anxiety disorders: findings from a sample of primary care patients. J Anxiety Disord 24:559-64
Marcks, Brook A; Weisberg, Risa B; Edelen, Maria Orlando et al. (2010) The relationship between sleep disturbance and the course of anxiety disorders in primary care patients. Psychiatry Res 178:487-92
Marcks, Brook A; Weisberg, Risa B; Keller, Martin B (2009) Psychiatric treatment received by primary care patients with panic disorder with and without agoraphobia. Psychiatr Serv 60:823-30
Weisberg, Risa B; Dyck, Ingrid; Culpepper, Larry et al. (2007) Psychiatric treatment in primary care patients with anxiety disorders: a comparison of care received from primary care providers and psychiatrists. Am J Psychiatry 164:276-82