Several studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between competence and outcome in CBT for depression but studies of CBT for anxiety disorders are lacking. The present study explores the relationship between competence and outcome in cognitive therapy (CT) for social anxiety disorder, using hierarchical linear modeling analyses (HLM). Data were drawn from a multicenter randomized controlled trial. Five trained raters evaluated videotapes of two therapy sessions per patient using the Cognitive Therapy Competence Scale for Social Phobia (CTCS-SP). Overall adherence to the treatment manual and patient difficulty were also assessed. Patient outcome was rated by other assessors using the Clinical Global Impression Improvement Scale (CGI-I) and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Results indicated that competence significantly predicted patient outcome on the CGI-I (β = .79) and LSAS (β = .59). Patient difficulty and adherence did not further improve prediction. The findings support the view that competence influences outcome and should be a focus of training programs. Further research is needed to compare different ways of assessing competence and to understand the complex relationships between competence and other therapy factors that are likely to influence outcome.

cognitive model of social phobia has been extensively evaluated in adults. However, very little data is available on the applicability to social anxiety in adolescence. This study examines the model's applicability in a large adolescent sample. 581 students (aged 14-20) completed questionnaires assessing social anxiety, depression, and variables of the cognitive model (namely safety behaviors, negative social cognitions and social attitudes, self-focused attention, recurrent self-images, pre-and post-event processing). The results revealed that high and low socially anxious youths differed significantly on all cognitive variables. Sequential regression analysis indicated that social attitudes, social cognitions, safety behaviors, and self-imagery were predictive for social anxiety, after controlling for depression and gender. Additionally, a path analysis model examining the relationships between the cognitive variables supported the model's applicability, yielding differential moderating effects of gender. The cognitive model is at least partly applicable to adolescent social anxiety and it might be useful to develop a cognitive treatment for this population.

Sudden gains in CT and IPT for SAD are predictive of long-term outcome. In addition, the effect of sudden gains may be greater in CT compared to IPT.

Zusammenfassung. Der Affective Style Questionnaire (ASQ) wurde aus dem Englischen übersetzt und an einer studentischen Stichprobe (N = 640) validiert. Der ASQ ist ein Selbstbeurteilungsinstrument bestehend aus 20 Items, in dem drei allgemeine Emotionsregulationsstile erfasst werden: Unterdrücken, Anpassen/Neubewerten und Akzeptieren. Die faktorielle Struktur wurde mithilfe des ESEM-Verfahrens (Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling) überprüft. Die Ergebnisse konnten die Faktorenstruktur der englischen Vorlage bestätigen. Die Testgütekriterien, die Konstruktvalidität und demographische Einflüsse wurden untersucht. Die internen Konsistenzen erwiesen sich als zufriedenstellend (Unterdrücken-Skala: α = .84; Anpassen-Skala: α = .75; Akzeptieren-Skala: α = .72), was ebenfalls sehr nahe an den Werten der Originalstudie liegt. Die Subskalen wiesen hypothesenkonforme Zusammenhänge zu bestehenden Verfahren aus dem Forschungsbereich „Emotionsregulation” auf. Der deutschsprachige ASQ ist ein ökonomisches Instrument in einem Bereich, in dem es erst sehr wenige validierte Verfahren gibt. Kein bestehendes Verfahren erfasst die drei genannten Stile in zufriedenstellender Weise gemeinsam. Mögliche Einsatzbereiche sind in der gesunden Allgemeinbevölkerung und nach weiterer Validierung auch in klinischen Populationen anzusehen.

No abstract