Addressing Social Anxiety in Adults who Stutter

 

(Alternative title: MOSAICS – Managing Social Anxiety in Clients who Stutter)

 

Phase II trial

Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit Programme (PB-PG-0610-22225) £204,318

Key Contact: Dr Jan McAllister (Principal Investigator) j.mcallister@uea.ac.uk

 

Around 720,000 people in the UK and 70 million world-wide experience stuttering (or stammering, which means the same thing). Many people who stutter experience high levels of social anxiety, a profound fear of interacting with or being evaluated by other people.

The Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists currently recommends ‘talking therapies' such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to treat social anxiety in people who stutter. Although CBT and similar approaches can offer effective treatment for social anxiety in this client group, people who stutter may be reluctant to receive treatment that requires them to have lengthy spoken conversations with a therapist, because if their social anxiety is associated with their speech problem they will, by definition, dislike speaking.

In the present study we are piloting an online treatment that has been used successfully to treat social anxiety in people who do not stutter. Participants will be randomly allocated to a treatment or placebo condition, and carry out eight 20-minute computer sessions over a 4-week period, either at home or at the University of East Anglia. Immediately before and after the 4-week treatment period, and again 4 months later, researchers will measure participants' levels of social anxiety and speech fluency.

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of this approach and its acceptability to people who stutter. The results of the study will be used to strengthen the design of a more comprehensive trial.

For further information, please contact j.mcallister@uea.ac.uk .

 

 

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