Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is more effective for anxiety disorder than anti-depressants, according to new research.
Social anxiety disorder patients suffer from severe interpersonal and communication problems. They are more likely to leave their friends and reject promotions at work, fearing they would have to interact more with people. The disorder is a psychiatric condition that makes patients afraid of social interactions.
"The good news is that social anxiety is treatable. Now that we know what works best, we need to improve access to psychotherapy for those who are suffering," Evan Mayo-Wilson, a research scientist at the Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a press release.
Mayo-Wilson and the team examined data gathered from 13,164 participants in 101 clinical trials. All the participants suffered from severe and longstanding social anxiety.
The team placed 9,000 people on either medications or placebos, and more than 4,000 received a psychological intervention. They examined different types of talk therapy and found individual CBT was the most effective.
"CBT is a form of treatment that focuses on relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It helps people challenge irrational fears and overcome their avoidance of social situations," Mayo-Wilson said.
According to the research findings, people who do are not happy with talk therapy or do not have access to CBT, for them the next best treatment is antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
Researchers warned that the medication might cause serious side effects and moreover, it does not work on everyone. Apart from this, the improvements in symptoms do not last after people stop taking the pills.
The findings of the study were published in The Lancet Psychiatry.
