Clinical evaluation of Behavioral Activation Treatment of anxiety (BATA) in three older adults

This paper describes three single-case experimental evaluations of behavioral activation treatment of anxiety (BATA) applied with a 51-year-old male, a 62-year-old female, and a 53-year-old female, each of whom met DSM-IV criteria for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). Each case was a clinical replication of an initial trial of BATA reported in Turner and Leach (2009). Treatment was delivered in twelve weekly 60-minute individual sessions and evaluated using an A-B-C phase change with repeated measurement design. Decreased scores in self-reported anxiety were obtained in each case and the improvements were maintained during a 3-month no treatment maintenance phase. Compared to baseline, each participant also recorded increases in activity levels in some key life areas during the treatment phase. These preliminary findings suggest that increased activation in functionally positive areas is associated with reported decreases in anxiety and that BATA could be an effective stand-alone treatment for GAD in adults.