Online single-session positive psychology interventions for youth with chronic conditions: A pilot study

The interventions are three online, brief (<60 minute) positive psychology modules. Each module is designed to be stand-alone and completed in one sitting. Participants will choose which of the three modules they would like to complete. The modules will be delivered using the Qualtrics platform, which will track intervention completion rates. Each module focuses on a different positive psychology skill that has been linked to mental health and adaptive emotion regulation in youth with chronic conditions: self-compassion, optimism, self-efficacy. The intervention is self-guided, and participants are free to complete the intervention in their own home, or any environment where they have access to a computer. Intervention Format A generic introductory section will be consistent across the three modules and will explain the concept of emotion regulation and its importance for mental health when dealing with a chronic condition. Self-compassion, optimism, and self-efficacy will be introduced as adaptive emotion regulation strategies. After reading an overview of each module, participants will choose which of the three modules they want to complete. Each of the three modules will contain psychoeducation in the form of short videos and written text. This will include what the target skill is, why it is important for emotion regulation, why it is relevant for youth with chronic conditions, and how it can be modified. Following this, each module will contain a series of activities that have been designed by the co-design group or theoretically and empirically linked to the target skill in the current literature. Activities will demonstrate content through audio recordings of stories shared by the intervention co-designers, before guiding participants through a series of self-reflection exercises using free-text responses. For example, the self-compassion module will ask participants to reflect on the way they treat themselves compared to the way they treat their friends in times of hardship. Each module will conclude with a summary of the module content and tips for translating the lessons into the real world contexts. Co-design process Modules were co-designed with 10 young people living with chronic conditions to ensure relevance. Over 6 months, co-designers were engaged via several individually completed surveys and generative activities (e.g. creating graphic design boards) as well as five 90-120 minute online group workshops with all co-designers working together. In addition to these planned processes, to ensure all co-designers felt like they were meaningfully able to share their perspective, the facilitator offered individual consultations with co-designers if requested (e.g. if a co-designer was unable to attend a group workshop due to illness or wanted further assistance with an individual co-design activity). Initial stages of the co-design used group workshops and anonymous brainstorm boards to explore participants’ ideas about the target skills, including what each skill is, how it could be improved, and specific barriers to each skill faced by young people with chronic conditions. In the next survey and workshop, co-designers provided feedback on potential intervention activities from the current literature base, before working as a group to design new activities that would be more relevant for the target population. Next, anonymous brainstorm boards were used to explore what information should be provided before choosing a module, language preferences, and the most important messages within the intervention. In the subsequent group workshop, the co-design group worked together to design introduction sections based on these preferences. In another workshop, a member of the research team facilitated a story generation workshop, where co-designers generated content for the intervention based on their own experiences of living with a chronic condition. Finally, intervention prototypes were created, with each participant individually and anonymously providing feedback on the prototypes. A final group workshop was used to re-design elements of the intervention to appropriately address the feedback.