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Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students
BACKGROUND: Animal phobia is one of the most common forms of specific phobias. This anxiety disorder challenges the medical student working with animal models. Regarding this, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of one- and multi-session cognitive exposure-based treatmen...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Dove
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7429405/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32848483 http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S256781 |
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author | Hemyari, Camellia Dolatshahi, Behrooz Sahraian, Ali Koohi-Hosseinabadi, Omid Zomorodian, Kamiar |
author_facet | Hemyari, Camellia Dolatshahi, Behrooz Sahraian, Ali Koohi-Hosseinabadi, Omid Zomorodian, Kamiar |
author_sort | Hemyari, Camellia |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Animal phobia is one of the most common forms of specific phobias. This anxiety disorder challenges the medical student working with animal models. Regarding this, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of one- and multi-session cognitive exposure-based treatments in students with rat phobia. METHODS: For the purpose of the study, a total of 40 female students with rat phobia were allocated into two groups of one- and multi-session cognitive exposure-based treatments. The data were collected using psychological measures, including state anxiety, rat phobia, and disgust questionnaires, which were completed in three stages, including the baseline, pre-treatment, and post-treatment. The gene expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (ie, interleukin-1 [IL-1], nuclear factor-kappaB [NF-κB], and tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNFα]) associated with acute stress, as well as the serum levels of IL-6 and cortisol, were determined using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods. This study was registered at the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT20171123037602N1). RESULTS: According to the results, both treatments yielded a significant reduction in almost all psychological measures and biological variables, except for IL-6. Rat phobia was the only variable that showed a statistically greater reduction in the multi-session treatment group. Furthermore, rat phobia and disgust reduction were maintained in both groups to the same extent during follow-up. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study were indicative of the incidence of habituation in psychological and biological factors following exposure therapy. Both one- and multi-session treatments reduced the factors associated with rat phobia almost to the same degree. As a result of the high levels of disgust, anxiety-related biological factors remained high in four students despite observing a significant reduction in their fear. This led to passive avoidance in this group. The OST enabled the students to handle rats in less than half a day. Accordingly, it could be applied as a half-day workshop for students in medical universities to avoid the incidence of associated anxiety-related disorders in this group. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7429405 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Dove |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74294052020-08-25 Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students Hemyari, Camellia Dolatshahi, Behrooz Sahraian, Ali Koohi-Hosseinabadi, Omid Zomorodian, Kamiar Psychol Res Behav Manag Original Research BACKGROUND: Animal phobia is one of the most common forms of specific phobias. This anxiety disorder challenges the medical student working with animal models. Regarding this, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of one- and multi-session cognitive exposure-based treatments in students with rat phobia. METHODS: For the purpose of the study, a total of 40 female students with rat phobia were allocated into two groups of one- and multi-session cognitive exposure-based treatments. The data were collected using psychological measures, including state anxiety, rat phobia, and disgust questionnaires, which were completed in three stages, including the baseline, pre-treatment, and post-treatment. The gene expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (ie, interleukin-1 [IL-1], nuclear factor-kappaB [NF-κB], and tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNFα]) associated with acute stress, as well as the serum levels of IL-6 and cortisol, were determined using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods. This study was registered at the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT20171123037602N1). RESULTS: According to the results, both treatments yielded a significant reduction in almost all psychological measures and biological variables, except for IL-6. Rat phobia was the only variable that showed a statistically greater reduction in the multi-session treatment group. Furthermore, rat phobia and disgust reduction were maintained in both groups to the same extent during follow-up. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study were indicative of the incidence of habituation in psychological and biological factors following exposure therapy. Both one- and multi-session treatments reduced the factors associated with rat phobia almost to the same degree. As a result of the high levels of disgust, anxiety-related biological factors remained high in four students despite observing a significant reduction in their fear. This led to passive avoidance in this group. The OST enabled the students to handle rats in less than half a day. Accordingly, it could be applied as a half-day workshop for students in medical universities to avoid the incidence of associated anxiety-related disorders in this group. Dove 2020-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7429405/ /pubmed/32848483 http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S256781 Text en © 2020 Hemyari et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms (https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php). |
spellingShingle | Original Research Hemyari, Camellia Dolatshahi, Behrooz Sahraian, Ali Koohi-Hosseinabadi, Omid Zomorodian, Kamiar Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title_full | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title_fullStr | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title_full_unstemmed | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title_short | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of One- and Multi-Session Exposure-Based Treatments in Reducing Biological and Psychological Responses to Rat Phobia Among Students |
title_sort | evaluation of the effectiveness of one- and multi-session exposure-based treatments in reducing biological and psychological responses to rat phobia among students |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7429405/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32848483 http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S256781 |
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