Question: In adults with social anxiety disorder and/or avoidant personality disorder, how effective is group cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) compared with individual CBT, in improving patient outcomes?

Answer:

There is some indication that individual cognitive therapy for people with social phobia may be more effective than group therapy, particularly in reducing the symptoms of social phobia. However, the available evidence is insufficient to be confident of a true difference in the effectiveness of individual and group cognitive therapies.

Further, high quality research is needed in this area. Researchers should take particular care to ensure that cognitive therapies are similar in all respects other than group of individual format.