A new technology-driven treatment was found to be as effective as psychiatric medication for treating social anxiety disorder, according to a recent clinical study.
The study compared gaze-contingent music reward therapy (GC-MRT), which is based on eye-tracking technology that allows for treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD) through changing attentional biases in patients, with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drug treatment in reducing SAD symptoms.
The paper was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
One hundred and five adults with SAD were randomly allocated into three groups: one group was treated with Cipralex, which is an SSRI drug used as first-line treatment; a second group was treated with GC-MRT; and a control group (which included patients who were told they would receive GC-MRT sessions following a 12-week waiting period)….