AN ARCHIVAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF SEVERITY OF PROBLEMS AND AMOUNT OF EXPOSURE PRACTICE, TO POSITIVE CHANGES AND OUTCOME STATUS AMONG AGORAPHOBIC PARTICIPANTS IN A BEHAVIOURAL TREATMENT PROGRAM.

The present archival study focused upon the relationship between amount of exposure practice, severity of problems, outcome status and positive change in a behavioural treatment program for agoraphobia. This program primarily involved in-vivo exposure (systematic desensitization) to feared situations. Subjects recorded the duration and frequency of their exposure practice on behavioural diaries. These diaries, along with other self-report data, were treated as an archival source which was subjected to the scrutiny of control hypotheses as suggested by Kerlinger (1964). Since the program to be utilized here was behavioural in its approach, these hypotheses were deduced from findings of the behavioural theorists. Lines of evidence for each of the hypotheses were then pursued in the data. The 30 subjects who participated in this program were assessed at pre and posttreatment, thereby allowing an investigation of treatment outcome, prior to a consideration of practice variables. The results of repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) supported the predicted posttreatment reductions in generalized anxiety, phobic anxiety as well as depression. Additionally, as predicted, there were no changes in locus of control at posttreatment. In terms of exposure practice, the expected relationship between amount of practice and treatment outcome, was consistently and remarkably unsupported. However, the anxiety experienced during practice was found to be predictive of outcome. Other significant relationships did not occur as consistently as the latter two.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1986 .F735. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-10, Section: B, page: 3109. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1986