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Measuring Change in Individuals With Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder
Sponsor: Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Summary
Functional Neurological Symptom Disorders (FNSD) are one of the commonest reasons why patients are referred to neurologists. They are as disabling as neurological disorders causing similar symptoms related to more readily demonstrable pathophysiological or structural changes, however, FNSD are more commonly associated with psychiatric comorbidities. Psychotherapy is a treatment option for FNSD although there is still a dearth of reliable evidence that psychotherapy works for FNSD or how it may help. This is partly due to the nature of psychotherapeutic interventions but also to the difficulties associated with studying treatment outcome in a patient population that is highly heterogeneous in terms of aetiology and clinical presentation. This study contributes to a larger research project that is examining the efficacy of specialist psychotherapy for patients with FNSD utilising a range of approaches including objective cognitive and behavioural measures and subsequently exploring the reliability and usefulness of different outcome measurement approaches in this patient group. This study specifically aims to assess whether psychotherapy treatment in FNSD infers any change in cognitive behaviours of impulsivity and biases in the processing of emotional information. FNSD patients will complete two computer-based tasks and health-related questionnaires before, immediately after and at 6-months follow up after completing psychotherapy treatment sessions to measure any treatment-associated improvements. Data collected from patients not receiving any psychotherapy and participants without FNSD will provide longitudinal and cross-sectional control data respectively.
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
18 Years - Any
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
122
Start Date
2022-01-01
Completion Date
2023-02-01
Last Updated
2026-10-07
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Conditions
Interventions
STH Specialist Neurology Pyschotherapy
The Neurology psychotherapy service at STH provides care as standard practice to the patient population of focus in this study. Patients enter the psychotherapy service by referral from their consultant and an initial assessment comprising an hour-long semi-structured interview in which the patient and therapist decide in collaboration whether therapy would be useful. Patients are assigned to a therapist based on therapist availability. The service offers interventions with a flexible maximum of 20 sessions each 50 minutes long. Initially, a patient is booked for 4-6 sessions after which a collaborative progress review takes place. At this point, a further 4-6 sessions will be booked together, or a final session planned to end therapy and plan for discharge. In some circumstances, it is clear that a full 20 sessions would be beneficial, and patients are contracted. In other cases, therapy continues to be reviewed every 4-6 weeks.
Locations (1)
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom