Grant: Project Grant

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in Canada, and they are responsible for substantial psychological distress, disability, and health service needs. Self-management support (SMS) is an innovative intervention, complementary to usual care, with great potential to support personal recovery of individuals with anxiety disorders. The Revivre community organization has developed a structured 10-week group SMS program for anxiety disorders. This clinical trial aims at examining the effectiveness of the intervention as a complement to usual care at post treatment and follow-up (4, 8, 12 and 24 months). The intervention will be compared to treatment-as-usual in community-based care. Participants will comprise adults with clinically-significant anxiety symptoms that will be recruited through primary care clinics, bulletin boards and social media in four regions of Quebec. The outcome measures will include anxiety symptoms, personal recovery, self-management behaviors and service utilization. The rigorous evaluation of this SMS program will provide invaluable information to decision makers, health care managers and clinicians regarding the effectiveness, cost/effectiveness and implementability of the intervention in community-based care in conjunction with usual care. Widespread implementation of this intervention could lead to extensive improvements in primary mental health care services delivery, and consequently, significant improvements in personal recovery for the large number of patients suffering from anxiety disorders.