253. Mechanical sensing equipment on social adaptability of patients with social anxiety disorder

Abstract Background Social anxiety disorder is one of the most prevalent mental and psychological disorders worldwide. The core symptoms of patients are persistent fear of social scenes, excessive sensitivity to environmental perception, and avoidance of social interactions, which seriously damage their interpersonal relationship building, career development, and daily self-care ability. The current clinical intervention methods mainly include cognitive-behavioral therapy, group psychological counseling, and medication therapy. Although they can alleviate some symptoms, they have obvious limitations, such as focusing more on psychological counseling and lacking targeted intervention tools based on real-time perception feedback. Mechanical perception devices can capture environmental and physiological signals through multimodal sensors, providing personalized feedback to patients, but their impact on social adaptability has not been systematically validated. Methods A randomized controlled trial design was used to select 60 patients with social anxiety disorder (Hamilton Social Anxiety Scale score ≥ 18), who were randomly divided into an experimental group (n = 30) and a control group (n = 30). The experimental group wore mechanical perception devices integrated with visual, auditory, and physiological sensing modules and received real-time perception feedback intervention for 8 weeks; The control group received routine psychological counseling. The intervention effect was evaluated using the Social Adaptation Scale (SAS), Social Interaction Frequency Record Table, and Cortisol Level Test. Independent sample t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were conducted using SPSS 26.0. Results The specific data is shown in Table 1.After intervention, the SAS score of the experimental group (32.45 ± 4.12) was significantly lower than that of the control group (41.68 ± 5.37), and the difference was statistically significant (t = 7.83, p<.001); The number of social interactions per week in the experimental group (12.37 ± 2.54 times) was higher than that in the control group (7.62 ± 2.18 times) (t = 6.95, p<.001); The cortisol level in the experimental group (189.32 ± 25.67 nmol/L) was lower than that in the control group (245.76 ± 31.24 nmol/L) (t = 8.11, p<.001). Repeated measures ANOVA showed that the main effect of the intervention in the experimental group was significant (F = 42.36, p<.001), and there was an interaction effect between time and grouping (F = 18.75, p<.001). Discussion Mechanical perception devices can significantly enhance the social adaptability of patients with social anxiety disorder, and their mechanism may be related to real-time environmental physiological signal feedback reducing patients' perceived threat levels and enhancing social confidence. The increase in social interaction frequency and the decrease in cortisol levels in the experimental group mutually confirm that the device can improve social adaptation by regulating physiological stress responses. The limitations of this study lie in the small sample size and short intervention period. In the future, it is necessary to expand the sample size and conduct long-term follow-up studies to optimize the sensing accuracy and feedback mode of the equipment.