A mobile app called STOP will train people with paranoia to automatically consider harmless explanations for ambiguous social situations, replacing the split-second assumption that others intend them harm. Paranoia causes severe distress and damages work, family, and social life, yet existing treatments try to tackle entire disorders at once rather than targeting this single symptom directly. The researchers have already tested a six-session computerised therapy that uses word tasks and questions to nudge people toward non-threatening interpretations of events—such as seeing a stranger’s stare as curiosity rather than a threat. Now they will expand it into a twelve-session app and test it against a control condition in a randomised trial across two UK sites. If STOP works, it could offer a cheap, self-administered treatment that patients can use on their own phones, reducing the burden on mental health services and giving people a practical tool to manage paranoia in daily life. The trial will also reveal how many sessions produce clinically useful symptom reduction, helping clinicians decide the minimum effective dose.
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Paranoia is linked to several mental health conditions, including psychosis and leads to distress and impairment in work, family and social functioning. Recent advances in thinking suggest that treatments might be more effective if they focus on one particular symptom at a time and try to treat that rather than trying to treat the whole disorder in one go. This study proposes to develop and test a mobile app version of a new therapy for paranoia called CBM-pa. CBM-pa is a self-administered psychological therapy that has been developed by combining basic research on biases in paranoia with established techniques that can change these biases. CBM-pa is computerised and involves reading text that could be interpreted in a paranoid way (such as the stare of a stranger which could reflect harmful intentions). The therapy encourages readers to make the alternative interpretation (such as the stare reflecting harmless curiosity) by using word tasks and questions. A six-session version has been developed and a feasibility study has been completed with promising results. In year 1 of this study we will develop CBM-pa into a more accessible and engaging 12- session app for mobile phones, called STOP: Successful Treatment of Paranoia, by adding 6 newly created sessions. In years 2-4 we will give patients STOP alongside their usual treatment and compare this with a control condition where patients simply read text in the mobile app instead. The study uses a randomised controlled design and patients are recruited from two different UK sites. Participants will receive either 6 or 12 sessions of STOP and we will measure clinical symptoms immediately and at 3 and 6 months later. These treatment data will be compared with data from similar people who take part in a control condition (reading text in the app) and are assessed at the same times. The data will show us whether there are any beneficial effects of STOP and, if so, how long they last. We will also measure in more detail exactly how many sessions produce enough symptom reduction to be clinically useful.
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