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Improving Social Climate in Secure Settings With a Compassion Focused Staff Intervention

NCT07135518 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 96

Last updated 2026-05-18

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a Compassion Focused Staff Support (CFSS) intervention in improving the social climate of correctional and forensic psychiatric institutions. The intervention is based on Compassion Focused Therapy and designed to support staff in managing stress, enhancing affect regulation, and strengthening compassion toward self and others. Three institutional units are included in the study. One unit is randomly selected to receive the full CFSS intervention, including a half-day introductory workshop and monthly staff support sessions over six months. A second unit serves as a control group and receives no intervention. A third unit receives only the initial workshop without follow-up sessions. The effect of the intervention is evaluated using a pre-test/post-test design. Outcomes include changes in staff-reported and client-reported social climate, assessed with validated questionnaires, as well as institutional data on critical incidents. The study aims to improve working conditions in secure settings and foster more compassionate, effective staff-client interactions.

Conditions

  • Social Climate
  • Compassion
  • Critical Incident
  • Staff Support
  • Workplace Wellbeing

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Compassion Focused Staff Support

The Compassion Focused Staff Support (CFSS) intervention is designed to promote emotional resilience, compassion, and affect regulation. The intervention begins with a half-day introductory workshop covering the evolution-informed model of emotion regulation, the three-affect system framework, social mentalities, and the nature of compassion. This workshop provides psychoeducation and experiential exercises to introduce key concepts. Following the workshop, staff participate in six monthly 60-minute team sessions over a six-month period. These sessions involve reflective dialogue, experiential exercises, compassion-focused practices, and group-based exploration of emotionally challenging work situations.

BEHAVIORAL

CFT Workshop

Participants attend a single half-day workshop providing psychoeducation and experiential exercises on compassion, affect regulation, and social mentalities based on Compassion Focused Therapy.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University Psychiatric Clinics Basel

    lead NETWORK

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2024-05-31
Primary Completion
2025-08-04
Completion
2025-09-05

Countries

  • Switzerland

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 NCT07135518 on ClinicalTrials.gov