P71: Which Variables Predict the Response of Patients with Social Anxiety Disorder to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy?

Social anxiety (or social phobia) disorder is defined as a constant fear of being embarrassed or negatively evaluated in social situations or while doing activities in the presence of others. Several studies have examined the role of certain variables that might predict response to treatment and may affect treatment outcome. The purpose of this study was to identify predictive variables of change and improvement. The English version of the SPIN (Connor et al., 2000) was translated into Persian (Iranian language) and used in this study. In addition to SPIN, the measures including clinical interviews with the DSM-IV (Spitzer, Williams and Gibbons, 1994) and depression, anxiety and stress scale-21 (DASS-21) (Lovibond et al., 1995), the credibility/expectancy scale (Davilly and Borkovec, 2000) and homework compliance scale (Primakoff, Epstein and Covi, 1986) respectively were administered to a sample of 59 participants with social phobia ranging from 18 to 40 years of age. Research population included adults with social anxiety disorder. Based on a purposive sampling method, 59 social phobic patients were selected after the clinical interview and considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Among the variables, compliance in doing the homework (HCS), depression (in DASS-21 (and the level of education were significant in prediction of socially anxious patients’ response to cognitive–behavior therapy. The regression model correctly predicted 87% of changes in the responses of SAD patients to cognitive-behavioral therapy.