CBT Versus CBT With Virtual Reality Exposure for Social Anxiety Disorder and Agoraphobia

Introduction: Anxiety disorders have a high lifetime prevalence, early-onset, and long duration or chronicity. Exposure therapy is considered one of the most effective elements in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety, but in vivo exposure can be challenging to access and control, and is sometimes rejected by patients because they consider it too aversive. Virtual reality allows flexible and controlled exposure to challenging situations in an immersive and protected environment.

Aim: The SoREAL-trial aims to investigate the effect of group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-in vivo) versus group cognitive behavioral therapy with virtual reality exposure (CBT-in virtuo) for patients diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and/or agoraphobia, in mixed groups.

Methods & Analysis: The design is an investigator-initiated randomized, assessor-blinded, parallel-group and superiority-designed clinical trial. Three hundred two patients diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and/or agoraphobia will be included from the regional mental health centers of Copenhagen and North Sealand and the Northern Region of Denmark. All patients will be offered a manual-based 14-week cognitive behavioral group treatment program, including eight sessions with exposure therapy. Therapy groups will be centrally randomized with concealed allocation sequence to either CBT-in virtuo or CBT-in vivo. Patients will be assessed at baseline, post-treatment and one-year follow-up by treatment blinded researchers and research assistants. The primary outcome will be diagnosis-specific symptoms measured with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for patients with social anxiety disorder and the Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia for patients with agoraphobia. Secondary outcome measures will include depression symptoms, social functioning, and patient satisfaction. Exploratory outcomes will be substance and alcohol use, working alliance and quality of life.

Ethics and dissemination: The trial has been approved by the research ethics committee in the Capital Region of Denmark. All results, positive, negative as well as inconclusive, will be published as quickly as possible and still in concordance with Danish law on the protection of confidentially and personal information. Results will be presented at national and international scientific conferences.