Clinical features affecting treatment outcome in social phobia

Characteristics of social phobics were examined to determine their effect on treatment acceptance, drop-out rate and amount of improvement at post-treatment. The rate of treatment non-acceptance was low and those who entered treatment differed from those who did not only on ratings of social phobia severity. The drop-out rate also was relatively low, and there were no differences between those who dropped out and those who completed treatment. When patients were divided on the specific versus generalized subtype dichotomy, a number of interesting findings emerged. Response to treatment was similar, but the specific subtype was significantly more improved at post-treatment than the generalized subtype. When compared on composite indexes of overall improvement and endstate functioning, there was no difference between the number of specific and generalized social phobics achieving significant or moderate improvement. However, a greater number of the specific subtype were judged to have high or moderate endstate status than the generalized subtype. A similar outcome was found when social phobics with comorbid disorders were compared with those who were non-comorbid. The results are discussed in terms of factors affecting outcome in social phobia treatment.