Large group exposure treatment
- A large-group one session treatment (LG-OST) combining exposure and diaphragmatic breathing as a bodily coping element was carried out to investigate its feasibility and effectiveness in a sample of 43 highly dental fearful individuals treated simultaneously. We assessed subjective dental fear, dysfunctional dental-related beliefs, and perceived control pre- and post-intervention and at four-month follow-up. Participants additionally performed a behavioural approach test (BAT) pre- and post-intervention. During the applied exposure exercises, four participants (9.3%) discontinued the program all reporting too high levels of distress. Regarding subjective dental fear and dysfunctional dental related beliefs post treatment effects, LG-OST showed medium to large effect sizes, ranging from Cohen’s \(\it d\) = 0.51 to \(\it d\) = 0.84 in the Intention-to-Treat analysis. Subjective dental fear improved clinically significantly in about one fourth (25.6%) of therapy completers. All post-treatment effects remained stable over time. Concerning the behavioral fear dimension, we observed a strong ceiling effect. Already at pre-assessment, participants accomplished more than six out of seven BAT-steps. Thus, behavioral approach did not increase significantly following treatment. Overall, the LG-OST protocol proved feasible and efficient. Compared to other one-session individual and multi-session group treatments the observed LG-OST effects were smaller. However, if LG-OST could match the efficacy of highly intensive short treatments delivered in an individual setting in the future, for example, by applying a wider array of exposure exercises, it could be a very useful treatment option as an intermediate step within a stepped care approach.
Author: | André WannemüllerGND, Hans-Peter JöhrenGND, Alina BorgstädtGND, Jessica BoschGND, Milena MeyersGND, Miriam VölseGND, Saskia ScholtenORCiDGND, Jürgen MargrafORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-58503 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02007 |
Parent Title (English): | Frontiers in psychology |
Subtitle (English): | a feasibility study of exposure combined with diaphragmatic breathing in highly dental fearful individuals |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2018/07/05 |
Date of first Publication: | 2017/01/06 |
Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
Tag: | Open Access Fonds dental fear; dental phobia; diaphragmatic breathing; exposure; exposure treatment; group treatment; one-session treatment |
Volume: | 7 |
First Page: | 1183-1 |
Last Page: | 1183-10 |
Note: | Article Processing Charge funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. |
Institutes/Facilities: | Fakultät für Psychologie, Klinische Psychologie & Psychotherapie |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | Philosophie und Psychologie / Psychologie |
open_access (DINI-Set): | open_access |
faculties: | Fakultät für Psychologie |
Licence (English): | Creative Commons - CC BY 4.0 - Attribution 4.0 International |