Talk Therapies Benefit Patients with Social Anxiety Disorder: Study
Talk therapy is better than anti-depressant medications for people suffering from social anxiety disorder, according to a study.
Social anxiety is a mental condition categorized by extreme fear and unreasonable phobia of social interactions and situations. Many people develop this condition in early childhood where their fear of being embarrassed, misjudged, criticised and teased are brushed off assuming they are 'just shy'. Many manage to overcome their anxiety as they grow up.
Experts from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found talking therapy helps patients more than prescribing common anti-depressant drugs, reports the BBC.Their study examined the data of over 13,000 participants from 101 published researches to guage the effectiveness of existing treatments for social anxiety including talk therapy and prescription of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications.
The talk therapies used cognitive behavioral therapy that enabled patients to overcome their fears of being in a social situation. Many patients who sought this treatment reportedly had better outcomes and managed to deal with their fears compared to those who were on medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).
Giving patients SSRI may temporarily control anxiety but the phobia and distress return upon discontinuation of medications. However, the study could not confirm if combining both cognitive behaviour therapy and anti-depressant drugs is beneficial in treating patient with social anxiety disorder.
"Social anxiety is more than just shyness. People with this disorder can experience severe impairment, from shunning friendships to turning down promotions at work that would require increased social interaction," said Evan Mayo-Wilson, co-author and researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reports the Live Science News.
More information is available online in the Lancet Psychiatry.
