A new study says "talk therapy" should be considered the best first-line treatment for people with social anxiety disorder.

Social anxiety disorder is also known as social phobia. It's a psychiatric condition where people experience intense fear in social situations that hinder their normal daily activities. Talk therapy, anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants are common treatments for this kind of condition.

Like Us on Facebook

Evan Mayo-Wilson, study co-author and researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said social anxiety is more than just shyness.

"People with this disorder can experience severe impairment, from shunning friendships to turning down promotions at work that would require increased social interaction," Mayo-Wilson added.

A new study compares the effects of different therapies on people with social anxiety disorder. Researchers studied 101 clinical trials of more than 13,000 participants conducted between 1988 and 2013.

They evaluated the effectiveness of medication in treating social phobia while others checked talk therapies that include an approach called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT focuses on helping patients deal with overcoming their irrational fears.

The study published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry discovered that CBT was a more effective treatment than medications.

Researchers also found out those patients who received CBT and those who took antidepressants (the types called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, or SNRIs) had better results than patients who didn't seek clinical treatment at all.

The study suggests that CBT should be the number one go-to treatment for people experiencing social anxiety. Those patients that don't experience better results after talk therapy should get SSRI medication, according to researchers.

Generally speaking, the results of the study suggest most patients respond well to common treatment.

Although antidepressants give better result, it also has some side effects like sexual dysfunction and increased agitation. There were studies showing SSRI antidepressants contributed to the worsening of social phobia after stopping the medication.

Researchers are still looking for further studies that confirm the combination of talk therapy and antidepressants give the best results for treating the disorder.

TagsTalk Therapy, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, antidepressants, cognitive behavioral therapy