Tic disorders, including Tourette's Disorder (TD) and Chronic Motor or Vocal Tic Disorder (CTD), are neurodevelopmental motor disorders characterised by motor and/or vocal tics. TD/CTD are impairing conditions with onset during childhood that often persist into adulthood. Behaviour therapy (BT) is an effective treatment for TD/CTD and is recommended as a first-line intervention in both in children and in adults. However, most adults with TD/CTD do not have access to BT due to a lack of trained professionals and geographical barriers. The objective of the study is to adapt and extend existing face-to-face BT treatment protocols for adults with TD/CTD to an internet-delivered format and evaluate its feasibility and preliminary efficacy. A total of 30 adult TD/CTD adult patients deemed eligible for the study through the recruitment process involving both psychologist and physician assessment will be enrolled in the project. The 8-modues treatment program, mainly based on exposure with response prevention with addition of other techniques will be made available for the participants in a secure treatment platform. The participants will keep in touch with a therapist using two-ways written communication in the same platform. The therapist's role will be to introduce the treatment and its modules, give feedback on the homework assignments and open the new modules as well as monitor the participants psychiatric symptoms and activity in the plattform. The measures will include tic severity secifically and disease severity in general, anxiety and depression symptoms, quality of life, treatment credibility and therapeutic alliance. The measures will be administrated at baseline, min- and post-tretment, as well at 3 and 12 months follow-up. Upon completion, this project will be the first crucial step towards the implementation of internet-delivered behaviour therapy (I-BT) for adults with TD/CTD in regular health care.
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Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS)
Timeframe: For the primary outcome: change between baseline and three months follow-up with one additional in-between measures at post-tretment. Two additional follow-up measures at 6- and 12-months.