None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Stress has a significant negative impact on health and wellbeing. Overburdened healthcare systems cannot provide human-led stress-reduction interventions to all. The current study aims to investigate whether a mindfulness intervention can be successfully delivered by teletherapy, and how effectiveness differs by type of technology used for delivery. Mindfulness interventions have been shown to be effective in reducing stress, which has positive implications for mental and physical wellbeing. The aim of this study is to determine whether a virtual human would be more effective at increasing mindfulness and reducing stress levels compared to a chatbot, and whether this would be as effective as delivery from a human. In this study, participants will be randomly allocated to receive a mindfulness intervention delivered by one of three ways: human, chat-bot, or virtual human. Participants will be asked to engage with the mindfulness intervention in one of those three methods of delivery in a lab session, where levels of stress and mindfulness, as well as physiological stress are assessed. Participants will then be asked to engage in this same intervention daily (at least twice a week) over the next 4 weeks. We are interested in how levels of stress and mindfulness change, and whether this differs by the method of delivery of the intervention. We are also interested in whether the type of technology affects the number of homework sessions completed, and how empathetic each type of delivery is rated.
Interventions
The trial involves the delivery of a mindfulness intervention by one of three modes of delivery: virtual human, chatbot, or human zoom delivery.
All participants come to the research centre for the first mindfulness session.
The mindfulness session is based on the Video-Conferenced Stress Management and Relaxation Training for Older Women with Breast Cancer (Antoni, 2017; VSMART) validated Mindfulness Meditation Relaxation Training intervention. This involves a preliminary question about the
The trial involves the delivery of a mindfulness intervention by one of three modes of delivery: virtual human, chatbot, or human zoom delivery. All participants come to the research centre for the first mindfulness session. The mindfulness session is based on the Video-Conferenced Stress Management and Relaxation Training for Older Women with Breast Cancer (Antoni, 2017; VSMART) validated Mindfulness Meditation Relaxation Training intervention. This involves a preliminary question about the participants' stress level, a brief explanation of mindfulness, then approximately 12 minutes of mindfulness instructions. In the virtual human delivery condition, participants interact with the digital human, which is an advanced form of human-like embodied conversational agent. The male digital human will appear on screen in a ‘head and shoulder’ framing while delivering the VSMART intervention by speaking it to the participant. The chatbot group delivery will be the same except the participants interact with an online automated chatbot, which is a more basic conversational agent without human form. The same VSMART intervention is delivered in a written text delivered on the screen. The human delivery of the session will involve the same script used by the virtual human and chatbot. To standardise the delivery format to be over a computer, the human condition will be delivered over zoom video from an adjacent room. The participant will interact with the human, who will verbally deliver the same VSMART intervention described above. This will be delivered by a male pre-intern in a University psychology training programme receiving clinical supervision from a registered psychologist. In all groups, participants will be asked to complete 12 minute homework sessions daily (with a minimum of at least twice a week) for four weeks using a computer (8 - 28 repetitions total; 1.5 - 5.5 hours total, respectively). These sessions will be delivered using the same modality they were randomised to; i.e. those in the digital human group will have sessions from the digital human, those randomised to the chatbot have sessions from the chatbot, and those allocated to the human will have video recorded human sessions. These simply consist of the same mindfulness instructions as earlier.
Sponsors
University of Auckland
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
All individuals over the age of 18 years who read, speak, and write fluent English will be eligible for inclusion in this study. Participants must also have access to a computer or smartphone to have access to the homework sessions. Participants must be current University students.
Exclusion criteria
Participants will be excluded from the study if they do not fulfil the inclusion criteria, do not have access to technology that will allow them to complete the at-home homework sessions, if they have hearing difficulties or complete vision loss.
Outcome results
None listed