Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 345–358, 2000 Copyright  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0887-6185/00 $–see front matter Pergamon PII S0887-6185(00)00027-X A Comparison of the Efficacy of Clonazepam and Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy for the Treatment of Social Phobia Michael W. Otto, Ph.D., Mark H. Pollack, M.D., Robert A. Gould, Ph.D., John J. Worthington III, M.D., Eliza T. McArdle, B.A., and Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, M.D. Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Richard G. Heimberg, Ph.D. Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Abstract—There is a growing body of evidence that social phobia may be treated effec- tively by either pharmacologic or cognitive-behavioral interventions, but few studies have examined the relative benefits of these treatments. In this study, we examined the relative efficacy of pharmacotherapy with clonazepam and cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBGT) for treating social phobia. In addition, we examined potential pre- dictors of differential treatment response. Outpatients meeting Diagnostic and Statisti- cal Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., revised) criteria for social phobia were ran- domly assigned to treatment. Clinician-rated and patient-rated symptom severity was examined at baseline and after 4, 8, and 12 weeks of treatment. All clinician-rated as- sessments were completed by individuals blind to treatment condition. Patients in both conditions improved significantly, and differences between treatment conditions were absent, except for greater improvement on clonazepam on several measures at the 12- week assessment. Symptom severity was negatively associated with treatment success for both methods of treatment, and additional predictors—sex, comorbidity with other The authors thank Bonnie Zucker for assistance in manuscript preparation. Supported in part by an unrestricted grant from Roche Pharmaceuticals. Portions of this paper were presented at the Anxiety Disorders Association of America conference in New Orleans, March 21–23, 1997. Requests for reprints should be sent Michael W. Otto, Ph.D., WACC-815 Massachusetts Gen- eral Hospital, 15 Parkman Street, Boston, MA 02114. 345