SSIs for Mental Health and Loneliness

Summary

This project includes three studies that explore the effectiveness of brief internet interventions for mental health and loneliness.

Study 1: The goal of this clinical trial is to examine if a brief online single-session intervention (SSI) adapted from an evidence-based internet cognitive behavioral therapy can reduce feelings of loneliness in people aged 16 and older who struggle with loneliness. The main question it aims to answer is if a brief SSI is sufficient to meaningfully reduce loneliness compared to an active control. Researchers will test these questions by comparing change in loneliness after 8 weeks between participants randomly assigned to either 1) a 30-minute online SSI for loneliness or 2) a 3-session online intervention for loneliness or 3) an active control SSI.

Study 2: The goal of this clinical trial is to examine if an SSI for psychological distress that uses popular online content as its primary form of intervention content can reduce feelings of psychological distress in people aged 16 and older who struggle with psychological distress. The main questions it aims to answer are 1) if curated popular online content can be more effective in supporting people struggling with psychological distress than researcher-created content and 2) if curated popular online content can be more effective in supporting people struggling with psychological distress than un-curated self-selected popular online content. Researchers will test these questions by comparing change in distress after 8 weeks between participants randomly assigned to either 1) 25-minute popular online content-based SSI for distress or 2) an effective 25-minute online SSI for distress with evidence-based researcher-created content or 3) online help-seeking as usual.

Study 3: The goal of this clinical trial is to examine if an SSI for loneliness that uses popular online content as its primary form of intervention content can reduce feelings of loneliness in people aged 16 and older who struggle with loneliness. The main questions it aims to answer are 1) if curated popular online content can be more effective in supporting people struggling with loneliness than researcher-created content, 2) if curated popular online content can be more effective in supporting people struggling with psychological distress than an active control, and 3) replicating the comparison in study 1, if a brief SSI is sufficient to meaningfully reduce loneliness compared to an active control. The study will test these questions by comparing change in loneliness after 8 weeks between participants randomly assigned to either 1) a 25-minute popular online content-based SSI for loneliness or 2) a 25-minute online SSI for loneliness with evidence-based researcher-created content or 3) an active control SSI.

Study 4: This experiment compared the loneliness SSI from study 1 to a version of it that lasted about half as long. It used a two-group repeated-measures experimental design, examining between-subjects differences in loneliness between baseline and eight-week follow-up between conditions.

Conditions

• Loneliness
• Mental Health Issue
• Distress, Emotional
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Stress

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Overcoming Loneliness three-week intervention

A self-guided online loneliness intervention with three 10-20 minute sessions. The intervention content draws heavily from Internet Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Loneliness and follows the form of single-session mental health interventions.

BEHAVIORAL

Overcoming Loneliness single-session intervention

The Overcoming Loneliness Three-Week Intervention condensed into a single-session intervention lasting 20-30 minutes.

BEHAVIORAL

Single-session "Sharing Feelings" program

A self-guided online supportive therapy intervention with a single 20-30 minute session intended to encourage users to share feelings with close others. Slightly modified from the "Sharing Feelings" intervention

BEHAVIORAL

The Blu Surfer program: a popular online content-based intervention for psychological distress

The Blu Surfer Program is a 25-minute SSI the research team developed centered on popular online content relevant to mental health. In the SSI, the user is first asked to select the kinds of support they would like to view. Next, the user is asked to explore a library of annotated popular online content (filtered by their desired kinds of content) and to select the content they find personally valuable. Finally, the SSI provides the user an annotated list of the content they selected. Users can keep this list to draw from, build on, or share later on as they wish.

BEHAVIORAL

The Action Brings Change (ABC) Program (TEAM Lab version)

The ABC project is a 20-30-minute SSI for teens based on behavioral activation. It was found to be efficacious for reducing depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and self-hate and increasing perceived control and agency in youth (link to SSI: https://osf.io/ch2tg/, license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). The researchers modified the phrasing in the intervention to make it more relevant to both teens and adults, as the original was designed for only teens.

BEHAVIORAL

Online help-seeking as usual

This intervention, created by the present research team, aims to emulate how one might find support on their own using the internet. In this condition, participants are asked to browse the internet for 25 minutes to find popular online content relevant to their personal struggles and create an annotated list of links to the content they find useful. The intervention is similar to a "self-study" condition, which found self-study and a video intervention equally increased mental health knowledge. The survey platform provides text entry boxes to help each participant create their guide and then provides a text version of their guide for them to keep.

BEHAVIORAL

The Lonely Blu Surfer program: a popular online content-based intervention for loneliness

The Lonely Blu Surfer Program is a 25-minute SSI the research team developed centered on popular online content relevant to loneliness. In the SSI, the user is first asked to select the kinds of support they would like to view. Next, the user is asked to explore a library of annotated popular online content (filtered by their desired kinds of content) and to select the content they find personally valuable. Finally, the SSI provides the user an annotated list of the content they selected. Users can keep this list to draw from, build on, or share later on as they wish.

BEHAVIORAL

Overcoming loneliness SSI 8-minute version

A shortened version of an online self-guided intervention based on principles of CBT for loneliness. The research team created this intervention by cutting lengthy didactic material and exercises from the 23-minute version, while maintaining its core concepts.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Jacobs Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of California, Irvine

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stephen M Schueller, Ph.D. · University of California, Irvine

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-12-04

Primary Completion

2023-09-06

Completion

2023-09-06

Countries

• United States

Study Locations