Virtual Environments for Childhood Social Phobia

儿童社交恐惧症的虚拟环境

• 批准号: 8122671
• 负责人: DEBORAH C BEIDEL
• 金额: $ 24.97万
• 依托单位: VIRTUALLY BETTER, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-16 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8122671
• 关键词: Academic achievement; Address; Affect; Aftercare; Age; Ambulatory Care Facilities; Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Applications Grants; Asperger Syndrome; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Attenuated; Behavior Therapy; Behavioral; Behavioral Sciences; Child; Childhood; Chronic Disease; Clinic; Clinical; Clinical Services; Communities; Community Practice; Computers; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Disease; Doctor of Philosophy; Effectiveness; Elements; Ensure; Environment; Family; Florida; Fluoxetine; Future; General Population; Home environment; Human Resources; Impairment; Intervention; Learning; Life; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Modeling; Neurosciences; Occupational; Outpatients; Parents; Peer Group; Phase; Placebos; Population; Prevalence; Principal Investigator; Randomized Controlled Trials; Research; Resources; Schools; Services; Simulate; Small Business Technology Transfer Research; Social Phobia; Solutions; Substance abuse problem; Technology; Testing; Treatment outcome; Universities; Writing; Youth; aged; base; bropirimine; commercialization; community setting; compliance behavior; computerized tools; design; evidence base; experience; follow-up; innovation; novel; parental involvement; peer; pill; programs; psychologic; psychosocial; response; skill acquisition; skills; skills training; social; social skills; treatment strategy; virtual

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders among youth, with lifetime prevalence ranging between 18-20% of the general population. Among anxiety disorders, social phobia (SP) affects 8% of all youth, resulting in significant short and long-term impairment, including increased likelihood of substance abuse, limited academic achievement, attenuated occupational functioning, and impaired or missing social relationships. Emerging data suggest that interventions that include social skills training, formal peer generalization sessions, and homework assignments as part of an overall treatment strategy show enhanced efficacy when compared to interventions without these components - the latter two elements which are designed to enhance skill generalization. Two critical treatment elements (peer generalization, homework assignments) are difficult to implement in traditional clinical settings, limiting optimal dissemination to youth in need of these services in different settings (e.g., at school, outpatient, or community facilities). This Phase I STTR, written in response to PA-07-423 Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience, Behavioral Science and Mental Health, will develop and validate an interactive set of virtual environments to solve the need for intensive behavioral practice opportunities that are critical for skill generalization, thereby enhancing dissemination and providing a model for future efforts. Virtual environments enable the child user to interact with virtual school characters on any standard computer, allowing daily intensive practice of social skills without the need for formal peer group activities (in-clinic solution) or intensive parental involvement (at-home solution).The virtual character responses will be predetermined and preprogrammed yet appear to be responsive to the users interactions, creating a simulated live scenario. This novel and commercially viable intervention with both in-clinic and at-home components will optimize clinical services by promoting the transfer of social skills acquired through traditional social skills training into real-life situations for children through repeated practice in a simulated social virtual environment. Once developed and validated, this marketable resource will enhance treatment dissemination of an evidence-based behavioral intervention to various treatment settings and provide technology readily adaptable for other disorders. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Among children, social anxiety is a common, severe and chronic disorder. Social Effectiveness Therapy for Children (SET-C) is an empirically supported treatment with significant potential to impact the lives of children with this severe and chronic disorder. The proposed school-based Virtual Environment, based on SET-C, will significantly increase dissemination of an empirically supported treatment, will address many of the current treatment barriers inherent in child-based interventions, and could be easily and affordably adapted for use with other populations in need of skills-based behavioral interventions.

描述（由申请人提供）：焦虑症是年轻人中最常见的精神疾病，终生患病率在18-20％的一般人群之间。在焦虑症中，社会恐惧症（SP）影响了所有年轻人中的8％，导致了显着的短期和长期障碍，包括增加药物滥用的可能性，有限的学术成就，职业功能减弱，社会关系受损或缺失。新兴数据表明，与没有这些组件的干预措施相比，作为整体治疗策略的一部分，包括社交技能培训，正式的同伴概括课程和家庭作业的干预措施显示出增强的功效 - 后两个元素旨在增强技能概括。在传统的临床环境中，难以实施两个关键的治疗元素（同行概括，家庭作业），将最佳传播限制在需要在不同环境（例如在学校，门诊或社区设施）中需要这些服务的年轻人。该阶段I STTR是针对PA-07-423神经科学，行为科学和心理健康研究的计算工具编写的，将开发和验证一组互动的虚拟环境集，以解决对技能泛化至关重要的密集行为实践机会，从而增强了传播并为未来的努力提供模型。虚拟环境使儿童用户能够在任何标准计算机上与虚拟学校角色进行互动，从而无需进行正式的同伴小组活动（临床内解决方案）或密集的父母参与（在家解决方案）的每日密集练习社交技能。虚拟角色响应将是预先确定和预编程的，但似乎对用户互动效果效果，从而创建一个模拟现场现场情景。这种小说和商业上可行的干预措施与临床和家庭组成部分都将通过在模拟的社交虚拟环境中重复实践来促进通过传统的社交技能培训获得对儿童现实生活的社交技能的转移，从而优化临床服务。一旦开发和验证，这种可销售的资源将增强对各种治疗环境的基于证据的行为干预的治疗传播，并为其他疾病提供易于适应的技术。 公共卫生相关性：在儿童中，社交焦虑是一种常见，严重和慢性病。儿童的社会效率疗法（SET-C）是一种经验支持的治疗，具有影响这种严重和慢性疾病儿童生活的巨大潜力。基于SET-C的拟议的基于学校的虚拟环境将大大增加对经验支持的治疗的传播，它将解决基于儿童干预措施的许多当前治疗障碍，并且可以轻松且经济地适应与其他需要基于技能的行为干预措施的人群使用。