HSW903 Research: CBT and the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

This research report explores the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in treating anxiety disorders. It includes an introduction to the topic, background information, a research question, and a detailed methodology section outlining the qualitative and quantitative approaches used. The report reviews three journal articles focusing on CBT trials, internet-based CBT treatments, and the effectiveness of CBT in treating social anxiety. The study uses a positivism philosophy, employing qualitative methods such as structured interviews and diagnostic reports, and analyzes data using SPSS. The report concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and summarizing the findings, suggesting CBT's potential in improving the quality of life for individuals with anxiety disorders. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Running head: CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
HSW903 Research Methods and Evidence Based Practice
ASSESSMENT 3
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
Student Name & Number
_______________________________
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1CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
Table of Contents
Introduction to the topic 2
Background to the topic 2
Research question 3
Methodology 3
Search terms/keywords 5
Search strategy diagram 7
Search Summary Table 7
Review of Literature 9
Article 1: 9
Article 2: 10
Article 3: 11
Contribution of literature to answering research question 13
Conclusion 13
References 14

2CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
Introduction to the topic
This research proposal is based on a topic which can be considered a huge social
problem also. This is so because such people who are affected from anxiety disorders cannot
enjoy a normal social life. They struggle to make friends and also they are not able to behave
normally at the different platforms as like normal people do. The research proposal is divided
into few sections such as the research methodology, review of literature, and the gaps
identified. The research methodology section describes the methods which will be used for
the proposed research. The proposed research work will be based upon both qualitative and
the quantitative form of research approaches. It also covers the literature review section
where three articles have been chosen and reviewed as well. The research proposal folds up
with a gap in the literature review section and also the conclusive section.
Background to the topic
There have been quite a number of research works on the chosen topic and have also
produced the different outcomes. Some studies have found CBT as an effective process to get
rid of anxiety disorder whereas some have not. Additionally, improving the quality of life of
the affected person is a challenge not only to the medical industry but also the family which
the affected person belongs to. The topic is being chosen to find some valuable elements
regarding the prospect of CBT in treating the anxiety disorder. This would not only attract
more future studies on the similar topic but would also produce some valuable findings for
the medical industry and to the families as well.
Anxiety disorder is a collection of fear and anxiety. Fear is for reacting to the current
events whereas anxiety is about worrying for the future. Such tendency may cause or produce
physical symptoms like shakiness and fast heart rate. Anxiety disorder can be of number of
types like panic disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, generalized

3CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
anxiety disorder and more. The classification is based on the physically evident symptoms.
Notably, one person can also have a number of disorders (Hayes 2016). The causes of anxiety
disorders can be both genetic and the surrounding social environment. Risk factors for people
with anxiety disorders include poverty, child abuse and family history of anxiety disorders.
Anxiety disorder should never be left untreated as there is no other way to overcome the
issue. To be eligible for the treatment or be identified as affected from a disorder, one needs
to be in the similar state for at least six months. Anxiety disorder can be treated in numerous
ways like counseling, lifestyle changes and medications (Newman et al. 2015).
About 12% of the population on an average gets affected from an anxiety disorder.
Approximately between 5-30% of people are affected from it at some point in their lives. The
rate of occurrence is close to double in females than males. It generally becomes evident
before the age of 25. The most common of the disorders are specific phobia and social
anxiety disorder. The effect is more observable on those who are aged between 15 and 35.
The occurrence becomes less common in people after the age of 55 (Cuijpers et al. 2014).
Research question
How cognitive behaviour therapy effective for the treatment of anxiety disorders?
Methodology
Introduction to the chapter
The chapter introduces the methodologies which will be followed in the proposed
research work. This is indeed a very important part of the research work as it mainly covers a
quantitative and qualitative approach to get some data and support the research arguments
with numeric values & the other evidences. Different methods will be used to cover the
methodology section; however, study will focus on CBT trials on the chosen respondents.

4CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
CBT trials would help to know whether the treatments have made any differences to the
affected people.
Philosophy
There are number of philosophy which is generally used in the research works. Three
of the most popular philosophies are Positivism, Interpretivism and Post-Positivism. For the
proposed research work on the chosen topic “Positivism” will be used as the research
philosophy. The positivism philosophy considers a scientific approach to the already
established facts. The philosophy uses the deductive approach, hypothesis testing and the
empirical evidence. Qualitative methods such as the structured & diagnostic interview and
diagnostic reports will be used. Scientific methods are used to analyze the larger sample sets.
The ontological view of the chosen policy is that the world is objective and does not depend
on the people’s subjective experience. The epistemological view is that the world is full of
knowledge and such knowledge is communicable between mediators (Lewis 2015).
Approach
It is important to identify the best approach for the chosen research topic or else the
productivity will hamper. The research can be both qualitative and quantitative or it can just
follow one of the approaches. For the chosen research topic, qualitative approach will only be
used. Qualitative approach will be used to get the numerical values of people suffering from
anxiety disorders and benefitted from the CBT trials. The result will produce some interesting
figures suggesting whether the CBT trials were effective in controlling or reducing the
anxiety disorders. Moreover, results would encourage future research works on the same
topic (Bauer 2014).
Strategy and research design

5CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
The strategy for the research would be to consider a number of studies that had
already been conducted on people affecting from the anxiety disorders. Such studies will also
include the number of CBT trials. The number of participants would be huge depending on
the number of CBT trials. This would help to get the varying results. Moreover, results will
help to understand whether the CBT trials can effectively reduce the time span spent in
treating the people with anxiety disorders. The data will be calculated with the help of
scientific method such as SPSS. This software is selected for capturing and analyzing the data
because it facilitates the organizing of data in a way which is rarely possible with the normal
excel sheet (Choy 2014).
Data collection and analysis methods
Data will be stored in the SPSS. This will be used in place of the excel sheet because
it gives or facilitates a much better way to organize the collected samples. An excel sheet
does not provide the organizing of data the way an SPSS does. Additionally, SPSS is a much
better tool than the excel sheets in calculating the collected samples (Lushey and Munro
2015).
As mentioned, samples of the trials will be captured in the SPSS. Data stored in SPSS
will be valuable after days, months and even years because of the fact that SPSS provides an
organized way of storing or capturing the data. Hence, the results will remain stored and can
be compared with the future results if more research works are conducted on the similar
topic. Diagnostic
Search terms/keywords
The field of literature is a qualitative approach to understand the chosen research
topic. Evidences are traced in scholarly journal articles, genuine website resources,
government reports and others.

6CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
Three chosen journal articles will be used in the literature review section of this study.
Different key words have been used in the different literatures such as cognitive behavioral
therapy, anxiety disorders, children, adolescents, social anxiety disorder, quality of life and
life satisfaction.
Cognitive behavioral therapy CBT is a psycho-social intervention which is a
widely used evidence based method to treat the
mental illness. It targets to treat the unhelpful
patterns such as beliefs, thoughts and attitudes.
According to few works, CBT treatments are
effective while others claim it a moderately
effective way.
Anxiety disorders An anxiety disorder is a state which creates the
sense of fear and worries in people. Fear is about
the current situation like making a social
interaction and speaking in front of a large
audience.
Children Children are generally those who have grown
bigger but are not matured enough to make the
decisions. The age limit for children varies with
countries. In general, the age of 16 is assumed as
the maturity level at which children are now the
decision maker.
Adolescents Adolescence is a transition stage from a child to

7CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
an adult.
Social anxiety disorder Social anxiety disorder is a fear which people
have for being rejected in a competition or being
viewed as stupid, boring and awkward. They have
fear for the inferior qualities from being noticed in
public. They are not expressive and do not have
the good social bonding with others.
Quality of life Quality of life is nothing but the nature of life
which varies from one people to another. Some
people have good life whereas some do not. There
may have different perspectives for the definition
of life; however, it is the number of diseases
which makes the life challenging. For example,
people with different types of anxiety will
probably have more challenge in their lives than
others who do not have the anxiety disorders.
Life satisfaction Life satisfaction in general means the fulfillment
of varieties of desires. People may have the
varying choices for their satisfaction; however,
nobody would ever what to be affected from
serious diseases. People affected from one or few
of serious diseases would certainly feel their life
as being filled with huge challenges.
(Source: Dumay and Cai 2015)

8CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
Data Collection
Three different articles chosen for the work
Three different general articles
were being used
First article looks into the effect of CBT on treating the children & adolescents
The next
article picked
up the internet
based CBT
treatments for
discussion
Identifying the contribution of literature review in understanding the research question
Search strategy diagram
Figure 1: Search Strategy Diagram
(Source: Created by author)
Search Summary Table
Articles Author Journal Study Type Theory Comments
Article 1 (Hudson,
J.L., Rapee,
R.M.,
Lyneham,
H.J.,
Behaviour
Research and
Therapy
Qualitative &
quantitative
Cognitive
Behavior
Theory
The work
provides
evidences for
children
responses to

9CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
McLellan,
L.F.,
Wuthrich,
V.M. and
Schniering,
C.A., 2015)
CBT based
on anxiety
diagnoses
types
Article 2 (Ebert, D.D.,
Zarski, A.C.,
Christensen,
H.,
Stikkelbroek,
Y., Cuijpers,
P., Berking,
M. and
Riper, H.,
2015.
Internet and
computer-
based
cognitive
behavioral
therapy for
anxiety and
depression in
youth: a
PloS one Quantitative
and the use
of mixed
effect model
A meta-
analysis
model
focussing on
youth having
the anxiety
disorders
Computer-
based CBT
based
treatments
have been
found
effective for
youth. Future
research
should focus
on its long-
term benefits.

10CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
meta-analysis
of
randomized
controlled
outcome
trials. PloS
one, 10(3),
p.e0119895.)
Article 3 (Hofmann,
S.G., Wu,
J.Q. and
Boettcher,
H., 2014)
Journal of
Consulting
and Clinical
Psychology
Quantitative Cognitive
Behavior
Theory in
relation to
social anxiety
disorders
CBT based
therapies are
moderately
effective in
treating
people
suffering
from anxiety
disorders and
improving
the standard
of quality of
life.
Table 1: Search Summary Table
(Source: created by author)

11CBT AND TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS
Review of Literature
Article 1:
“Comparing outcomes for children with different anxiety disorders following cognitive
behavioral therapy”
Description
The chosen work was done by (Hudson, Rapee, Lyneham, McLellan, Wuthrich, and
Schniering 2015). The work was conducted in the year 2015. It was conducted in the
Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia. Children with anxiety disorders were
being studied to identify the impact of cognitive behavioral therapy. Some of the highlights
of the research work are as follows:
● Results were not the same for children with different anxiety disorders
● Children with social anxiety disorder has responded poorly to the CBT trials than
children with other general disorders
● Children with generalized anxiety disorder have better response to the trials than
children with other anxiety
● Future research works are needed to find or suggest the effective treatments to the
children with social anxiety disorder
In the chosen article, a clinical sample has been utilized. The chosen clinical sample had the
reports of 842 children and the adolescents from the age of 6 to 18. The chosen samples were
assessed with the help of the diagnostic interview, child-report and the parent-report.
Diagnostic interview contains a number of medically related questions. Parent-report is the
views and perspectives of parents for CBT based treatments of anxiety disorders. Child-