Emotion Regulation
Conditions
Brief summary
Studying can be a difficult time, and some students can find it challenging to deal with stress. This research project at Virginia Commonwealth University aims to understand how two different online stress management training programs affect students' daily experiences and activities. This research project will help us understand how those training programs help students to improve their emotional well-being.
Detailed description
Participants will be randomly assigned (like the flip of a coin) to one of the two online stress management training programs. For two weeks, participants will receive daily online lessons that will teach you how to deal with stress. To investigate how this program affects mood, researchers will monitor participant's daily activities and experiences combining brief daily surveys with activity tracking via smartphones. The activities and experiences will be tracked for a week before the training, two weeks of the training, and one week after. Shortly after the training, researchers will also reach out to participants for a phone interview where they will ask about the training experience in more detail. Afterwards, researchers will check in with participants at the end of the semester for one more week of experience and activity tracking.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALExperimental intervention
Daily lessons received by email to be completed the same day
BEHAVIORALComparison intervention
Daily lessons receive by email to be completed the same day
Sponsors
Mind and Life Institute, Hadley, Massachusetts
Virginia Commonwealth University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 25 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* 18-25 years old; * Enrollment as a full-time student; * Studying in-person; * Reduced emotional well-being; * Absence of major depressive, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder diagnoses; * Little or no experience of the intervention; * Ownership of a smartphone with an OS no older than iPhone 5 or Android 5 and an active data plan.
Exclusion criteria
• Diagnosis of major depression, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in loneliness | Baseline to the end of the semester, up to 15 weeks | Loneliness will be measured with the UCLA Loneliness Scale an instrument assessing frequency of felt social disconnection. |
| Change in social connection | Baseline to the end of the semester, up to 15 weeks | Connection to others will be measured with the Two-Way Social Support Scale |
| Change in depression | Baseline to the end of the semester, up to 15 weeks | Depressive symptoms will be measured using Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale |
| Change in anxiety | Baseline to the end of the semester, up to 15 weeks | Anxiety symptoms will be measured using Beck's Anxiety Inventory |
| Changes in daily experiences | Baseline to the end of the intervention, 4 weeks | Smartphone passive sensing will be accomplished through AWARE which will record frequency (but not content) of short message service (SMS) text messaging and calls, location and mobility (to assess out-of-home departures), and nearby Bluetooth addresses (to assess social proximity). A conversation plugin will make surrounding sound inferences (without retaining audio recordings), including presence of other voices. |
| Changes in daily well-being | Baseline to the end of the intervention, 4 weeks | Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) will include items to measure mood, loneliness, felt social connection and school belonging, and interactions with others. EMA surveys will be administered through the AWARE app. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed