Desenvolvimento de uma plataforma online de terapia autoguiada para o transtorno de ansiedade social de desempenho

Abstract

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by strong and persistent fear of one or more social situations. Individuals with performance-type social anxiety disorder (performance only) have concerns about public performance, which are generally more expressive in their professional and/or academic lives. This reasearch was divided in three chapters, the first presents a systematic review, consisting of 21 articles. Studies shows that guided or selfguided clinical protocols are effective in treating general SAD, but inconclusive about performance SAD. The second one, aimed to create and execute a self guided therapy protocol based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for patients with performance only SAD; this treatment was made possible through a website (Try it) and patients had free access to assessment tools and self-guided sessions. Third charpter tests the effectiveness of this protocol, investigating the profile of patients and comparing scores related to levels of social performance anxiety and fear of negative evaluation, identified in the pre-test and post-test. The sample consisted of 51 participants, and only a statistically significant reduction (p<0.05) was observed in the scale of fear of negative evalation (FNE). Future studies must be done to increase this theme.