Investigating Attention Patterns in Young People With Anxiety

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Anxiety; Adolescent Behavior
• Interventions: Behavioral: Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training; Behavioral: Control Training

• Registration Number: NCT03546946
• Lead Sponsor: King's College London

Brief Summary

Adolescents with elevated anxiety have been found to direct their voluntary and involuntary attention more readily toward threatening stimuli, and spend more time dwelling upon that stimuli. Various computerised tasks have been developed to attempt to retrain these "attention biases" back away from threat.

This study will test a newly developed intervention, that uses (eye-tracking) methods to track the gaze of the individual. This intervention is called Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training (GC-MRT), and is designed to re-train the individual away from dwelling upon threatening stimuli (emotional faces), using their favourite music to re-infornce this learning.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2017-10-20
• Study First Submitted QC: 2018-05-23
• Study Start: 2018-06-05
• Study First Posted: 2018-06-06
• Status Verified: 2019-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2019-03-22
• Last Update Posted: 2019-03-25
• Primary Completion: 2020-01
• Study Completion: 2020-01

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 99

Inclusion Criteria

• 12-18 years of age upon study commencement
• Diagnosed generalised or social anxiety disorder (assessed by SCID)
• Informed written and witnessed consent

Exclusion Criteria

• Psychosis
• Autism
• Learning difficulties
• Uncorrected abnormal vision
• Current use of SSRIs

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: FACTORIAL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training	Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training	GCMRT for eight 20-minute sessions - twice per week over 4 weeks.
Control Training	Control Training	Passive viewing task with continuous music for eight 20-minute sessions - twice per week over 4 weeks.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in anxiety symtoms	Baseline and post-intervention (4 weeks), and at 3-month follow up.	Change in anxiety symptoms from baseline at 4-weeks on the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders (KSADS), and at 3-month follow up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in Self-report Anxiety	Baseline and post-intervention (4 weeks), and at 3-month follow up.	Change in self-report anxiety symptoms from baseline at 4-weeks on the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), and at 3-month follow up.
Change in Dwell time on negative faces	Baseline and post-intervention (4 weeks), and at 3-month follow up.	Change in dwell time on negative faces, from baseline at 4-weeks, using eye-tracking measures on a free-viewing attention task, and at 3-month follow up.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

King's College London; 🇬🇧 London, England, United Kingdom