Reduction of anxiety in aquaphobics.

The purpose of this study was to determine which of the three treatments: systematic desensitization "in vivo", systematic desensitization "in imagination" or "no treatment" control brought about a significant improvement in adult aquaphobics. Thirty-eight adult aquaphobics were randomly assigned to the "three treatments". A battery of four tests, three state-anxiety and one trait anxiety were administered to the subjects pre and post treatment. ANCOVA was used to find out if a significant difference existed among the treatment groups post treatment. A significant difference at the .05 level of confidence was obtained for the three state-anxiety test but not for the trait anxiety test. A post hoc test (Scheffé), applied to the data indicated a significant difference between "in vivo" treatment and the other two treatments but no significant difference between the "in imagination" treatment and the "no treatment" control at the .05 level of confidence. ANOVA was applied to the data to ascertain if any of the improvements were significant. The results indicated that "in vivo" treatment brought about a significantly greater improvement (reduction in anxiety) than either of the other two treatments as measured by the three state-anxiety tests but no improvement differential was indicated by the trait anxiety test at the .05 level of significance.