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Writing Activities and Emotions

NCT04539756 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 250

Last updated 2021-07-02

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The current study aims to test whether an online two-week positive psychological intervention can increase positive affect in college students. Participants will be recruited from the University of Pittsburgh undergraduate subject pool. Students will be ineligible if they are under the age of 18; currently prescribed medications for cardiac arrythmias; have a history of heart surgery, heart attack, or stroke; are currently pregnant; or currently have symptoms consistent with COVID-19. This study includes an active control arm and an intervention arm. Both arms will be required to complete writing activities every other day for two weeks. Participants in the control arm will list their daily activities, while participants in the intervention arm will complete various positive psychology activities. Questionnaires assessing mood, emotional well-being, social functioning and a few health behaviors will be administered pre- and post-intervention. The investigators aim to recruit 250 undergraduate students with the hope that at least 50 participants per group will complete the entire study.

Conditions

  • Healthy

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

positive psychological intervention

Participants will be asked to complete writing activities every other day. They will choose which activity they would like to complete each day, from a menu of six different activities. Each activity is a different positive psychology exercise.

BEHAVIORAL

Active control condition

Participants will be asked to complete the same writing activity each day, which will ask them to list their daily activities. Participants will be encouraged to process their daily activities superficially by the receiving the following instructions: (1) list each activity in brief, incomplete sentences, (2) document only facts about performing the activities, and (3) to not provide any information about emotional responses to performing the activities. By following these instructions, participants are presumably deriving less meaning from their activities, which may minimize gains in positive affect in the active control condition

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Pittsburgh

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Caitlin M DuPont, MS · University of Pittsburgh

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2020-09-08
Primary Completion
2020-11-20
Completion
2020-11-20

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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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 NCT04539756 on ClinicalTrials.gov