(PS1-38) Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder – Analysis of Culture, Diversity, and Impact on Treatment Generalizability Within a Critical Review

Abstract Text: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly prevalent with significant lifetime impacts. Cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard treatment with successful patient outcomes. Cognitive behavioral group therapy (CBGT) is one form that provides unique benefits to participants, including normalization of symptoms and social support, as well as increased access to treatment at a lower per-session cost. Research on this mode of treatment has been ongoing for over 20 years, but we still have much to learn about its overall efficacy, especially related to how unique gender, cultural, and diversity factors impact its success. The goal of this part of the critical review was to summarize and evaluate the most current research, including an analysis of the diversity of the samples and any evidence of related adaptations to treatment delivery, as well as to provide recommendations for the enhancement of future studies based on best practices and recommended approaches. We conducted a search of peer-reviewed CBGT SAD studies with adult populations undertaken in the last five years using various databases. Based on our criteria, 23 studies were selected for review. Recent studies were conducted in various countries where the gender split of the samples was fairly equal, but diversity appeared to be limited within each study, including samples containing a large percentage of White participants in the United States. Cultural adaptions expand beyond translation to another language to modifying components that could impact treatment efficacy. Some studies have begun to explore this through adjusting examples in the psychoeducation component and adjusting specific exposures, but cultural adaptations were largely absent. Future studies should continue to increase the diversity of samples and explore whether adapting SAD treatment to other cultures improves engagement and outcomes in the group setting to assist the field in gaining a better understanding of the generalizability of treatment to different populations and how best to tailor treatment.