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Online Positive Emotion Skills Intervention for Symptoms of Depression

NCT01964820 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 95

Last updated 2018-01-03

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Major depressive disorder affects over 120 million people worldwide. Only 50% of Americans with depression receive adequate treatment, and one-third of those receiving treatment do not benefit. In this pilot project investigators will bring together two approaches that have the promise to reach large numbers of depression sufferers: a skills-based intervention for increasing positive affect and experiences in depressed individuals, delivered in an inexpensive self-paced mobile format. The study will make use of smartphone technology to improve conventional outcome measurement via in-the-moment emotion sampling and mobile assessment of heart rate variability, a predictor of cardiac health that may mediate some of the health effects of depression. The aims are: 1) Retool the existing web-based positive emotion intervention for use on smartphones, with innovative exercises that help participants bring the skills they are learning into real- life situations; 2) Measure heart rate variability and emotions using existing smartphone software; and 3) Perform a randomized pilot trial of the mobile intervention on individuals with clinical depression recruited online.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Positive Affect Skills Training

Our intervention teaches 8 skills that research suggests lead to increased positive emotions, beginning with basic skills (recognizing and savoring positive events), and progressing to more complex ones such as goal- setting and acts of kindness. Established skills such as reappraising negative thoughts are also taught, in the context of cultivating positive emotions and coping with stress. The skills are taught over 5 weeks, with one or more new skills introduced each week. A week consists of 1-2 days of didactic material and 5-6 days of real-life skills practice and reporting. For a full description, see "A positive affect intervention for people experiencing health-related stress: development and non-randomized pilot test" (Moskowitz et al., 2012).

Sponsors & Collaborators

Principal Investigators

  • Judith T Moskowitz, PhD · University of California, San Francisco

  • Michael A Cohn, PhD · University of California, San Francisco

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2014-07-31
Primary Completion
2016-06-30
Completion
2016-08-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Diseases
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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01964820 on ClinicalTrials.gov