One-session treatment for specific phobias: Barriers, facilitators and acceptability as perceived by children & young people, parents, and clinicians

Abstract

Between 2015 and 2020 the Alleviating Specific Phobias Experienced by Children Trial (ASPECT) was conducted in the UK to examine the non-inferiority of One-Session Treatment in comparison to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based interventions for children and young people with specific phobias. A nested qualitative evaluation was conducted as part of this trial to examine the acceptability of One-Session Treatment. Qualitative interviews were conducted with children and young people taking part in the trial, their parents/guardians, and clinicians delivering the intervention, about their experiences and the acceptability of One Session Treatment. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis followed a qualitative framework approach, a widely used method of analysing primary qualitative data pertaining to healthcare practices with policy relevance. Stakeholder groups found One Session Treatment to be an acceptable intervention and barriers and facilitators for its implementation into services were also identified. Potential barriers included challenges to patient flow and treatment scepticism, whilst facilitators included adopting a child-centred approach, child readiness and suitability, opportunity for increased momentum, parental support and involvement, and proximal and distal gains. For One Session Treatment’s successful implementation into services, consideration of these barriers is needed and suitability guidance for its use in this population should be developed. Further research exploring children and young people’s experiences of receiving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and its acceptability in comparison to One Session Treatment would be welcomed.

One session treatment (OST) is equivalent to multi‐session cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in children with specific phobias (ASPECT): results from a national non‐inferiority randomized controlled trial

“…ASPECT was a pragmatic, multi‐center, parallel group non‐inferiority RCT, comparing the clinical and cost‐effectiveness of OST with multi‐session CBT. A nested qualitative study exploring the acceptability of OST to CYP, their parent/guardians, and therapists and a full economic evaluation are reported elsewhere (Hayward et al., 2022 ; Wang et al., 2022 ).…”

One-session treatment compared with multisession CBT in children aged 7–16 years with specific phobias: the ASPECT non-inferiority RCT

“…Adapted with permission from Hayward et al42 © 2022 Hayward et al This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.…”