Loneliness, Psychological Distress
Conditions
Brief summary
This study will use a longitudinal randomized experimental design. Participants will be randomly assigned to either a positive affect skills intervention or a psychoeducation control group and assessed with questionnaires at baseline and immediately post 8-week intervention.
Detailed description
Participants will be randomly assigned to either a positive affect skills intervention or a psychoeducation control group, with each intervention lasting 8-weeks. Participants in the positive affect skills intervention will have full access to the unchanged Happify platform. The psychoeducation control group participants will use a version of the Happify platform that encourages thinking about well-being through quizzes and polls without providing any instructions for promotion (i.e., Wait-list Control). Participants will be asked to complete questionnaires before and after the 8-week program, at which point study participation will end.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALHappify
An online platform for conveying techniques from positive psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.
Sponsors
Happify Inc.
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
Users are randomly assigned between arms after completing baseline assessment and stay in that arm for the duration of the study.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* No prior experience on the Happify platform (new user registration) * Located in the United States * Self reported loneliness/desire to be more connected to others
Exclusion criteria
* Participants who are under the age of 18, reside outside of the United States, have previously registered for Happify, or did not self report loneliness/desire to be more connected with others
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Loneliness (Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale; Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980) | From start of 8-week intervention (baseline) to immediately post-intervention | A 20-item scale designed to measure one's subjective feelings of loneliness as well as feelings of social isolation. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Depression Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke, Spitzer, & Williams, 2001) | From start of 8-week intervention (baseline) to immediately post-intervention | A 9-item measure of depressive symptoms |
| Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7; Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, & Löwe, 2006) | From start of 8-week intervention (baseline) to immediately post-intervention | A 7-item measure of anxiety symptoms |
| Perceived Stress Scale (PSS: Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) | From start of 8-week intervention (baseline) to immediately post-intervention | 10-item measure of perceived stress |
| Resilience(composite of Perceived Stress Scale [Cohen et al., 1983], Happify Scale [Carpenter et al., 2016] and Life Orientation Scale, Revised [Scheier & Carver, 1985]) | From start of 8-week intervention (baseline) to immediately post-intervention | Composite score made of perceived stress, positive emotionality, and optimism. Perceived stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), a 10-item questionnaire that asks users to rate on a scale of 0 (never) to 4 (very often) how frequently they experience various symptoms of feeling stress. Positive emotionality was measured using the emotion subscale of the Happify Scale (HS-E; Carpenter, Crutchley, Zilca, Schwartz, Smith, Cobb, & Parks, 2016), which is a 4-item scale asking participants to rate the extent to which, over the past week, they have experienced positive and negative emotions that are activated or de-activated. Optimism was measured using the Life Orientation Scale, Revised (LOT-R; Scheier & Carver, 1985), a 6-item scale on which participants rate the extent to which they identify with optimistic or pessimistic beliefs. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed