Group interpersonal psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder: development process and a pilot test

Background

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a common and disabling psychiatric disorder that negatively impairs patients' quality of life. Studies suggest that inadequate consideration of interpersonal problems may contribute to the poor treatment response in psychotherapy for GAD. Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is an evidence-based psychosocial intervention that focuses on symptoms by improving interpersonal functioning, and research demonstrates that IPT is efficacious in treating social anxiety and panic disorders. To date, however, there are no studies examining IPT for patients with GAD.

Methods

The authors developed and pilot-tested an IPT manual for the treatment of GAD in groups with two cohorts of patients. Pre- and post-test measures of anxiety were collected and analyzed.

Results

The authors successfully developed a treatment manual for Group IPT for Anxiety using iterative qualitative methods. Significant improvement from baseline was noted in the GAD scores for patients in both patient cohorts.

Conclusions

The results suggest that IPT can be successfully used for GAD in group formats and that future large-scale randomized trials should be warranted. The results also suggest that online group therapy is feasible and warrants further study and that it may be used to deal with access and logistical barriers faced by many patients.