Contemporary study: Capafons (1998) Flashcards
APRC - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Aim)
Aim: To investigate the effectiveness of systematic desensitisation as a treatment for fear of flying
APRC - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Procedure)
Procedure: participants were recruited through a media campaign which informed them of a free-of-charge intervention programme aimed at treating fear of flying.
- A total of 41 particioants took part. 20 (8 males and 12 femals) were randomly assinged to the treatment group (recived SD therapy). the remaining 21 (9 males and 12 females) were assigned to a controle group (waiting for SD treatment).
MEASURES:
-Interview to find out about the fear of flying for each person, including their life history.
-A fear of flying scale (IDG-FV) that measured level of anxiety in different flying situations.
-3 EMV scales that measured ‘fear during flight’, ‘fear of preliminaries’ – e.g. going to airport, and ‘fear without involvement’ – e.g. seeing a plane.
-2 EPAV scales measuring a person’s catastrophic thoughts and how much they thought they’d have a physical reaction to flying.
-A video of a trip on a plane – from packing to touchdown.
-Physical measures of heart rate, muscular tension and skin temperature.
DEPENDENT VARIABLE:
- The level of the fear of flying – effective treatment would mean the lowering or disappearance of the phobia.
- After treatment, measures were taken after two flights and the first flight was within 7 days of the treatment.
- The physical measures were taken while the patient was watching the video (simulation), at the take off point in the video, so before the actual flight.
TREATMENT:
- Initial interview by researchers.
- Self-report data provided using the scales.
- Physical measures taken whilst watching a video of someone else taking a flight.
- Further interview to explain moving on to the treatment (therapy group) or for the next assessment session (waiting control group).
- Treatment took place at university – 2 x one hour sessions per week for each pp in therapy group (12-15 in total).
- Treatment involved training in relaxation & breathing techniques, and some ‘imagined’ situations (in vitro) and some ‘real life’ situations (in vivo).
- Also techniques of ‘stop thinking’ and brief relaxation taught, to help in the actual phobic situation.
- After 8 weeks both groups came back to complete questionnaires & video test.
APRC - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Results)
Results:
Treatment group: Before After
Fear during flight: 25.6 13.3
Avoidance behaviour: 2.95 1.25
Catastrophic thoughts: 10.3 5.0
Heart rate: 1.04 0.99
Control group: Before After
Fear during flight: 26.0 25.8
Avoidance behaviour: 3.14 3.33
Catastrophic thoughts: 9.76 9.67
Heart rate: 1.07 1.05
- Before and after measures for the control group showed that just the passing of time did not lead to any significant changes in the phobia.
- Before and after measures for the treatment group, including the self-report and the physical measures showed that significant changes did occur.
- The control and treatment groups matched well before treatment.
There were significant differences between the groups after therapy.
APRC - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Conclusion)
Conclusion: The lack of improvement in the control group and the significant improvement of the experimental/treatment group demonstrates that systematic desensitisation is an effective treatment for decreasing or eradicating fear of flying.
GRAVE - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Generalisability)
Generalisability – Can we generalise the results of this study to the target population? How big was the sample, was it representative?
WEAKNESS: The small sample size of 41 causes a problem for generalisation also the results cannot be easily generalised to other phobias. It was also a volunteer sample which means they might not be representative of the target population.
GRAVE - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Reliability)
Reliability - Can this study be replicated? Would we get the same results again? How good are the controls?
STRENGTH: Good controls - pps matched for gender, age, strength of fear and physical measures, allowing them a baseline measure for the phobia to measure the differences after treatment. Scientific credibility - standardised procedure in lab & objective physiological measures which triangulated with data from interviews, and self-reports
GRAVE - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Application)
Application - Do the findings of this study suggest any practical applications? Is it relevant to real-life situations?
STRENGTH: There was a significant difference post treatment, so SD should be offered as one of the main methods for treating this type of phobia which will bring significant personal, social and economic benefits to individuals and their families.
WEAKNESS: It didn’t work on 10% (2 out of 20) of the treatment group and 5% of the control group, which means they can only claim that the treatment HELPS with the phobia not that it works.
GRAVE - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Validity)
Validity - Is this study measuring what it says it is measuring? Are the tasks required of the participants natural? Is the setting natural or artificial? Ecological? Population? Experimental?
STRENGTH: Study designed to measure effectiveness of SD therapy for fear of flying and interviewers ensured that each pp had this fear so there is good validity in the results.
WEAKNESS: Internal validity - 2 measures did not show results, so did not represent the phobia and were not appropriate for the study. Also, data from structured interview relies on self-reporting, limits the validity of the responses as most were closed questions and pps often chose a response of ‘best fit’.
GRAVE - Capafons: Systematic desensitisation in the treatment of flying
(Ethics)
Ethics - Has this study adhered to ethical guidelines?
STRENGTH: Informed consent, Right to withdraw, Waiting list for SD therapy
WEAKNESS: Deception of control group as initially deprived of SD, so could lead to harm
