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Completed

NCT Number: NCT07810348

Effectiveness of an AI-Integrated Proactive Thought Control Intervention for Young Adults With Social Anxiety Disorder

Participants with Social Anxiety Disorder will be recruited from educational settings . After screening and informed consent, participants will be randomly assigned to PTC , ACG or CBT .The therapy session will be 8 session once a week, and data will be collected through psychological questionnaires in two phases at start and end of intervention.

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Key information

Conditions

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) Anxiety Disorders Mental Disorders Phobia, Social Phobic Disorders

Age range

18 year–26 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Farah Shahzadi

Gujranwala, Punjab Province, Pakistan

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Were between 18 and 26 years of age, corresponding to the developmental period of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000).
  • Met DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder on the SCID-5-RV (First et al., 2015).
  • Scored at or above the clinical cutoff of 30 on the LSAS-SR, indicating clinically significant social anxiety (Mennin et al., 2002).
  • Were not receiving any other form of psychological intervention at the time of the study.
  • Had sufficient English proficiency to understand instructions and complete the assessments (Flores, 2006).
  • Provided written informed consent.
  • Possessed basic computer literacy and typing skills required for the digital tasks.

Exclusion criteria

  • Were younger than 18 or older than 26 years.
  • Did not meet DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder on the SCID-5-RV.
  • Scored in the clinically significant range for general anxiety (BAI ≥ 16; Beck et al., 1988) or at or above the threshold for moderate depression (BDI-II ≥ 20; Beck et al., 1996).
  • Were currently receiving psychological treatment for any psychiatric condition.
  • Had a lifetime history of a severe psychiatric disorder other than Social Anxiety Disorder (e.g., psychosis, bipolar disorder).
  • Had a medical or neurological condition that could interfere with task completion or valid responding.
  • Were unable to complete the study procedures or assessments.
  • Had no prior experience using a computer.

Treatment and study plan

AI-Proactive thought control

Other

The two paired tasks Free Association Task (FAT) and Sentence Completion Task (SCT) form the core of the AI-integrated Proactive Thought Control (PTC) program. FAT shows a social-threat word and the participant types the first associated word, training proactive control at the lexical level; SCT then gives unfinished social-evaluative stems to complete with a benign word, extending the override to the propositional level. Both run three blocks of thirty self-paced trials per session (720 over two weeks), so every threat trial forces a positive, cue-relevant representation that overrides a primed negative associate before advancing. AI integration relies on real-time validation: SiEBERT scores sentiment and MiniLM embedding confirm semantic relevance, enforcing a positive, cue-relevant construal each trial. Feedback reinforces this accepted responses earn points, rejected one prompt revision, and the threshold relaxes after four failures and pass after eight.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Other

8-session CBT protocol ( Hope, Heimberg & Turk, 2019 manual) The CBT arm received an eight-session protocol moving from psychoeducation and the three-component model of social anxiety with an individualized Fear and Avoidance Hierarchy (Sessions 1-2), through cognitive restructuring using disputing questions from automatic thought to rational response (Sessions 3-4), to repeated graded exposure using role-plays, distress ratings, and added cognitive tools, with the final session offering core-belief work and setting post-treatment maintenance goals (Sessions 5-8)

Active Control

Other

Participants did the same two tasks as the experimental group. The Free Association Task and the Sentence Completion Task , matched on stimuli, format, and time. The key difference was that the control removed the core training element: responses were not checked for meaning against the cue, and about half of the negative answers were accepted without correction, so the link between a threat cue and forcing a positive response was broken. In short, the control group did the same tasks and got the same exposure, but without the active thinking-training component.

Primary outcomes

  1. Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self Report

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self-Report; range 0-144; higher = worse (greater social anxiety severity)

  2. Core Belief Questionnaire (CBQ)

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    Core Belief Questionnaire-Self-Trait and -Other (17 items each, 6-point Likert); range 17-102 if items are scored 1-6; higher = more strongly endorsed negative core beliefs (worse)".

  3. Dot Probe task

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    milliseconds; more positive = stronger bias toward social threat

  4. word sentence association paradigm

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    higher = more threat-relevant interpretation bias

  5. Behavioral Avoidance Task

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    SUDS 0-100; higher = more subjective distress

Secondary outcomes

  1. beck depression inventory II

    Time frame: Baseline (Day 1, before the first session) and Post-Intervention (within 7 days after the eighth session; the 8 sessions are delivered a weekly over a 8-week period

    range 0-63; higher = worse

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Farah Shahzadi

Other

Registry information

Official study title

The Objective is to Examine the Effectiveness of Ai Integrated Proactive Thought Control for Social Anxiety Disorder and Compare Its Effectiveness With Active Control Group and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Participants With SAD Will be Recruited From Educational Setting, Will Get 8 Therapy Sessions.

Important dates

Study start
2026
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2026
First posted
Sep 9, 2026
Registry last updated
Sep 9, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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