14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators from the Brown University say that they managed to develop a computer-based approach to reducing people's anxiety that actually seems to work. They report encouraging results following a pilot study they conducted to establish the connection.
The experts say that a wider, more comprehensive research is needed in order to confirm these suspicions. At this point, the conclusions can only be used as pointers, orientation guidelines for the development of future studies.
However, the results themselves are very interesting. Even if “treated” by a computer, anxiety patients learned to shift their attention away from anxious behavior, and learned how to interpret a wide variety of situations in a calmer manner than they previously could.
This was a pilot-scale randomized controlled trial, meaning that it included limited numbers of test subjects. Still, it managed to demonstrate that cognitive bias modification (CBM) anxiety therapy holds great promise for clinical applications.
What surprised analysts most is that the method worked even without human interactions, which were thus far believed to be one of the most important aspects of recovery. In fact, the computer-based approach proved to be just as effective as medication was.
Furthermore, even the patients themselves admitted that the therapeutic steps they underwent appeared to be acceptable and credible. Details of how the study was set up appear in the latest advanced online issue of the medical journal Depression and Anxiety.
The investigation involved people completing two exercises twice a week, for an entire month. After this interval, they became a lot less afraid of speaking in public, and also fared better on a standardized test designed to measure anxiety.
“A lot of people are skeptical, particularly people like me who are clinicians and know how hard it is to help people with anxiety and how much effort and time it takes in therapy,” Courtney Beard explains.
“It just doesn’t seem possible that a computer program could produce similar effects. But I’m more of a scientist than a clinician so I want to see data,” says the expert, who was the lead author of the study.
The scientist holds an appointment as an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior in the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Funds for this work came from the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).