Perceived helpfulness of treatment for specific phobia: Findings from the World Mental Health Surveys.

Journal: Journal of affective disorders

Volume: 288

Issue: 

Year of Publication: 2021

Affiliated Institutions:  Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Herston, QLD , Australia; Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, The Park Centre for Mental Health, QLD , Australia. Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. College of Medicine, Al-Qadisiya University, Diwaniya governorate, Iraq. Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain; Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Barcelona, Spain. Núcleo de Epidemiologia Psiquiátrica - LIM , Instituto de Psiquiatria Hospital das Clinicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil; Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology - LIM , Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil. Department of Epidemiologic and Psychosocial Research, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City, Mexico. Universitair Psychiatrisch Centrum - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (UPC-KUL), Campus Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium. School of Psychology, Ulster University, Londonderry, United Kingdom. Lisbon Institute of Global Mental Health and Chronic Diseases Research Center (CEDOC), NOVA Medical School | Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy. National School of Public Health, Management and Development, Bucharest, Romania. Department of Psychiatry, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, CIBERSAM, Universitat de Barcelona, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain; Department of Psychology, College of Education, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Shenzhen Institute of Mental Health & Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen, China. Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, St George Hospital University Medical Center, Balamand University, Faculty of Medicine, Beirut, Lebanon; Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy and Applied Care (IDRAAC), Beirut, Lebanon. Department of Mental Health, School of Public Health, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (EHESP), EA , Paris Descartes University, Paris, France. Department of Psychiatry, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong. Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, Poland. UDIF-SM, Servicio Murciano de Salud. IMIB-Arrixaca. CIBERESP-Murcia, Región de Murcia, Spain. Department of Psychiatry, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Bogota, Colombia (Cundinamarca University, calle # B , Bogotá, (zip), Colombia. Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Center for Excellence on Research in Mental Health, CES University, Medellin, Colombia. Department of Mental Health, National Center of Public Health and Analyses, Sofia, Bulgaria. Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: kessler@hcp.med.harvard.edu. Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.

Abstract summary 

Although randomized trials show that specific phobia treatments can be effective, it is unclear whether patients experience treatment as helpful in clinical practice. We investigated this issue by assessing perceived treatment helpfulness for specific phobia in a cross-national epidemiological survey.Cross-sectional population-based WHO World Mental Health (WMH) surveys in 24 countries (n=112,507) assessed lifetime specific phobia. Respondents who met lifetime criteria were asked whether they ever received treatment they considered helpful and the number of professionals seen up to the time of receiving helpful treatment. Discrete-event survival analysis was used to calculate conditional-cumulative probabilities of obtaining helpful treatment across number of professionals seen and of persisting in help-seeking after prior unhelpful treatment.23.0% of respondents reported receiving helpful treatment from the first professional seen, whereas cumulative probability of receiving helpful treatment was 85.7% after seeing up to 9 professionals. However, only 14.7% of patients persisted in seeing up to 9 professionals, resulting in the proportion of patients ever receiving helpful treatment (47.5%) being much lower than it could have been with persistence in help-seeking. Few predictors were found either of perceived helpfulness or of persistence in help-seeking after earlier unhelpful treatments.Retrospective recall and lack of information about either types of treatments received or objective symptomatic improvements limit results.Despite these limitations, results suggest that helpfulness of specific phobia treatment could be increased, perhaps substantially, by increasing patient persistence in help-seeking after earlier unhelpful treatments. Improved understanding is needed of barriers to help-seeking persistence.

Authors & Co-authors:  de Vries Ymkje Anna YA Harris Meredith G MG Vigo Daniel D Chiu Wai Tat WT Sampson Nancy A NA Al-Hamzawi Ali A Alonso Jordi J Andrade Laura H LH Benjet Corina C Bruffaerts Ronny R Bunting Brendan B Caldas de Almeida José Miguel JM de Girolamo Giovanni G Florescu Silvia S Gureje Oye O Haro Josep Maria JM Hu Chiyi C Karam Elie G EG Kawakami Norito N Kovess-Masfety Viviane V Lee Sing S Moskalewicz Jacek J Navarro-Mateu Fernando F Ojagbemi Akin A Posada-Villa José J Scott Kate K Torres Yolanda Y Zarkov Zahari Z Nierenberg Andrew A Kessler Ronald C RC de Jonge Peter P

Study Outcome 

Source Link: Visit source

Statistics
Citations :  Alang SM, & McAlpine DD, 2019. Pathways to mental health services and perceptions about the effectiveness of treatment. Soc. Mental. Health 9(3), 388–407. 10.1177/2156869318802341.
Authors :  32
Identifiers
Doi : 10.1016/j.jad.2021.04.001
SSN : 1573-2517
Study Population
Male,Female
Mesh Terms
Cross-Sectional Studies
Other Terms
Helpfulness of treatment;Simple phobia;Specific phobia;World Mental Health Surveys
Study Design
Randomized Control Trial,Cross Sectional Study
Study Approach
Country of Study
Publication Country
Netherlands