These two posters have been selected from those presented at the 16th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine Medicine: “Interdisciplinary behavioral medicine: systems, network and interventions”, held in Glasgow in June 2021.
POSTERS
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ANXIETY TESTING: FROM LITERATURE REVIEW TO DESIGNING A TRANS-DIAGNOSTIC TREATMENT PROGRAM
Aims. Test anxiety is a psychological condition that has relevant consequences on epidemiological and clinical grounds. People experiencing test anxiety suffer from high levels of distress in different kinds of testing situations. This paper analyses available empirical evidence addressing the efficacy of psychotherapy programs aimed at reducing test anxiety symptoms and describes the variables that have positive effects in the treatment of test anxiety.
Method. A literature search has been performed in order to identify both the variables most frequently used in the treatment of test anxiety and the evidence based efficacy of test anxiety intervention programs.
Results. The present review included 9 papers describing test anxiety interventions conducted in various geographical and cultural contexts. The selected interventions were focused on the relation between test anxiety and the following variables: procrastination, self-efficacy, self-esteem, learning skills deficits, cognitive biases, perfectionism. The majority of intervention programs had a short duration, from a minimum of 2 sessions to a maximum of 12 sessions, were mostly articulated in weekly sessions and were based on cognitive-behavioural theories, models and techniques.
Conclusion. The analysed programs were found to have positive effects on the reduction of test anxiety symptoms. However, the present review reveals that researchers in the field do not agree about what variables have to be specifically addressed in test anxiety treatments and about what are the process that determine and maintain such a disorder.
CLINICAL CASE OF CORRADO
The case of a homosexual patient sent to a psychology service for depressive-anxious symptoms is described. The patient had adopted an avoidance coping and a passive-anassertive attitude towards his sexual orientation, especially due to the shame deriving from a self-stigma. He had a brother who was married with three children and died 3 years earlier. The trans-diagnostic framework of the clinical case leads to the identification of short, medium and long-term therapeutic objectives such as: immediate psychological support, and then, once the mood had improved, reduction self-stigma for HIV, internalized homophobia, and then the coping with social problems and avoidance behaviors. Recognizing that his avoidance behaviors have been learned in the family context, psychotherapy proceeded rapidly, especially since the patient has started making decisions in his favor and following his preference. Today he has moved to a new home where he lives happily, he also bought a new car and meets a man he has been dating for a few months.
Historical Archive
Vic Meyer, of Polish origin, was a British psychologist at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School of the University of London (now UCL Medical School) and is considered the “spiritual father” of clinical case formulation, an approach to understanding complex psychiatric problems using learning principles derived from experimental psychological research and idiographically adapted to the individual case to develop an effective intervention regimen.