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Pilot Test of a Cultural Intervention to Enhance Alaska Native Students' Behavioral Health

NCT04561544 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 44

Last updated 2023-12-11

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

This project aims to enhance AN university students' behavioral health by supporting their cultural identity development. While the connection between cultural identity and behavioral health is becoming clearer, comparably less research has explored methods of enhancing identity development. Consequently, the investigators will pilot a cultural identity development program for AN students at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). This intervention is based on extant scientific literature, local findings from focus group with AN students, and traditional wisdom from AN Elders. The eight-week Elder-facilitated program incorporates storytelling, experiential learning, connection, exploration, and sharing of identity, cultural strengths, life paths, and rootedness in who they are in order to remain grounded when they face changes and challenges. Approximately 40 to 50 AN university students will be recruited for the intervention. Participants will be randomized, with half the participants receiving the intervention in the Fall 2020 semester and half the students receiving the intervention in the Spring 2021 semester. We hypothesize that engaging in this intervention will strengthen AN students' cultural identities, strengths, and sense of community; improve their behavioral health, as evidenced in higher self-reported wellbeing, and lower substance use, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation symptoms; and support their academic persistence and achievement. Outcomes will be tested via mixed design analyses of covariance. Moreover, program feasibility will be examined through a process evaluation, which will entail thematic analyses of six focus groups with program participants (n=40-50) and with the Elders who facilitated the program (n=5).

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Knowing Who You Are (Becoming): Cultural Identity Intervention

8-week cultural identity development program led by Alaska Native Elders

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

    collaborator NIH

  • University of Alaska Anchorage

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Model
SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
100 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2020-08-30
Primary Completion
2021-05-05
Completion
2022-05-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Diseases

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 NCT04561544 on ClinicalTrials.gov