View clinical trials related to Social Isolation.
Filter by:The proposed K23 study is an intervention study using an experimental therapeutics approach. This pilot RCT asks: "Does SOCIAL-ENGAGE increase cultural-social engagement and decrease suicide risk among Spanish-speaking adults?" We will first optimize a behavioral intervention - SOCIAL ENGAGE (S-ENGAGE) - for target engagement using human-centered design approaches with Spanish-speaking adults at risk for suicide (n=5) and then conduct a pilot RCT (n=60) to test target engagement (cultural-social engagement) and clinical impact (suicide risk) of S-ENGAGE with this population. The ultimate goal is for S-ENGAGE to be offered as a suicide prevention program for Hispanics at risk for suicide.
Social isolation and loneliness worsen older peoples' quality of life, risk of dementia, and contributes to 45,000 deaths/year in Canada - as much as smoking. Isolated people use the health care system more often, but have worse outcomes. Effective, inexpensive interventions exist but unfortunately they have not been implemented in Canada. We partnered with the Australian developer of HOW R U?, an effective and feasible intervention that uses specially trained, older, hospital volunteers to provide peer support to combat isolation and loneliness in isolated older peers. Little is known about older people's preferences for virtual care (telephone vs. video) nor their relative effectiveness. Thus we will compare two ways of delivering HOW R U: telephone support and a tested, secure user-friendly video conferencing app, aTouch Away® to a common control arm. We also partnered with Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Geriatrics and Psychiatry to identify people who will benefit from peer support; and with Volunteer Services to recruit volunteers.
Obesity is a major public health problem related to a variety of illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Prior research indicates that social stressors contribute to risk for obesity, possibly through alterations in diet and physical activity. However, it is not fully clear how these alterations contribute to obesity. The purpose of this study is to examine how the stressors of social isolation and discrimination relate to eating behaviors and dietary patterns, and further, how these behaviors affect the brain-gut-microbiome (BGM) connections. This study will focus on Mexican and Filipina women because research shows that they encounter a high burden of obesity and exposure to social stressors. Approximately 300 Mexican and Filipina women will be screened and enrolled. They will then provide information about social stressors via food diaries, physical body measures (e.g. waist circumference), questionnaire data regarding diet and eating behaviors, and measures of physical activity. Stool and serum will be collected to analyze microbes and metabolomics, and MRI to assess brain changes in the reward network. Analytic techniques will be used to integrate data from these multiple data sources. This analysis will determine the unique differences associated with ethnicity and social stressors in moderating eating behaviors and dietary patterns. The results of this study will provide new information about a possible pathway whereby social stressors affect behavioral, neurological and microbiome mechanisms related to obesity risk and provide new information in BGM patterns in two understudied ethnic groups. In the long term, this research may suggest possible approaches for intervention that may help reduce inequalities in obesity and related health problems.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, elderly people (EP) living at home have seen their health deteriorated, thus increasing their needs in support and care. Indeed, while it was estimated that before the pandemic120 000 unattended living at home EP required care and services (taking bath, access to medication and food, etc.), the number doubled after COVID-19. Therefore, the waiting list for socio-medical services for unattended vulnerable clientele without a family doctor grew from 1300 à 1715 EP in a couple of months during the pandemic. With these numbers, it becomes clear that an intervention is needed. Truly, the Institut National d'Excellence en Santé et Services Sociaux (INESSS) conclude that it was pivotal to first identify the most vulnerable EP and second re-orient them according to their needs. Thus the investigator developed the Évaluation et orientation SOcio-GÉRiatrique (ESOGER) questionnaire available on a secure digital plateform enabling both a rapid evaluation and intervention to asses EP needs and provide the adequate ressources. Investigator's previous research has demonstrated that ESOGER is one of the rare clinical tools of first contact in telehealth while being global, multidimensional, and equitable. For this study, the investigator aims to evaluate the effect of ESOGER on EP physical and mental health, loss of autonomy, social isolation, quality of life and ressources consumption.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a significant psychological stressor that threatens the onset of a mental health crisis in the US. Fear and anxiety about COVID-19 and its economic impact, as well as loneliness due to the required social isolation, are driving the mental health impacts of COVID-19; in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 45% of respondents reported that the coronavirus has had a negative impact on their mental health. This is reflected in Southeastern Ohio. In data that the investigators collected from 317 Ohio University faculty, staff, and students from late May to early June, 39% reported moderate-to-severe levels of anxiety, 41% reported moderate-to-severe levels of depression and 57% reported the COVID-19 outbreak was impacting their sense of social connection much or very much. Despite the significant community need for accessible and affordable care, there are currently no evidence-based interventions for individuals coping poorly with coronavirus-related distress. The investigators have developed a virtual group-based intervention targeting cognitive biases that amplify the experience of stress and anxiety (i.e., amplifying cognitions; Coping with Coronavirus-Related Emotion and Worry [COPING CREW]). The next step in developing this intervention in a scientifically rigorous manner is to refine the manual and procedures and conduct a pilot test of the intervention.
Oxytocin (OT) is a hypothalamic peptide that enters the peripheral circulation via the posterior pituitary gland. OT plays a key role in regulating appetite, psychopathology, prosocial behavior and sexual function. Hypopituitarism is associated with increased obesity, increased psychopathology, sexual and prosocial dysfunction despite appropriate hormone replacement. A few studies suggest the existence of a possible OT deficient state in hypopituitarism. In animal models, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) has shown to increase OT release. This study is designed to evaluate OT values after administration of GLP1 in adults (healthy volunteers and patients with hypopituitarism). The investigators hypothesize that OT response will be blunted following GLP1 receptor agonist (GLP1-RA) in patients with hypopituitarism compared to healthy controls.
Melodies for Mums (M4M) is an intervention developed and tested as part of a collaboration between the Royal College of Music, Imperial College London and University College London from 2015-2017. The programme involved weekly singing classes for mothers and babies delivered in groups of 8-12 participants in Children's Centres for 10 weeks. M4M was tested in a three-arm RCT involving 134 mothers with PND (with an Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) score above 10), compared with a comparison group (10 weeks of creative play classes) or care as usual (wait-list control). The study found that mothers with moderate-severe symptoms of PND who participated in the programme with their baby had a significantly faster improvement in symptoms than mothers in usual care. Specifically, the mothers in the singing group had an average EPDS score of 15.7 at baseline (moderate depression), which dropped to 10.3 by week 6 and 9.4 by week 10. This improvement equated to an average 35% decrease in depressive symptoms across the first 6 weeks, by which point 65% of the singing group no longer had an EPDS above 13. While funding has been secured to upscale this intervention as part of the SHAPER-PND programme, funded by the Wellcome Trust, the recent lockdown has not only halted the programme in its face-to-face format, but also prompted the interest in developing an online version that can be used (1) if the requirement for social distancing, even when the lockdown is relaxed, makes impossible the delivery of the programme; and (2) to broaden the reach to a nationwide delivery and extending to a wider population that may not have been able to attend in-person sessions due to geographical constraints or severity of symptoms. M4M online is a 6-week intervention for mothers with PND. The original M4M programme would be delivered face-to-face in groups of 8-12 mothers in weekly sessions lasting one hour. However, due to the current situation with COVID-19, we will therefore modify the original face-to-face intervention for this online study, as follows: - Groups of around 15-17 women to ensure that all participants can be visible on one screen during online delivery to create a stronger community and connection - Offer 6 weeks of intervention, also building on the evidence from the face-to-face intervention that by 6 weeks there is already a significant improvement in depressive symptoms compared with control interventions - Introduce a two-week lead-in period before the beginning of the six-session course, where mothers will be able to use WhatsApp and at least one (monitored) Zoom session to get to know each other.
Physical activity has been described by the US federal government as a 'best buy' for public health. Unfortunately, most adults in the United States are not sufficiently active, and this worsens with age. Low levels of participation are driven by many challenging barriers, including lack of access, few opportunities for enjoyable activity, and few supportive social relationships, which is especially important given the central role of social connection for lasting behavior change. A half-century of research in behavioral sciences has generated effective group-based physical activity programs, but these are inaccessible to most as they are often delivered in a few select research centers. Recent advances in telehealth have offered media for extending these interventions more broadly, but the experience of such programs is often hampered by technology that does not allow for a sense of physical and social presence. Fortunately, uptake of virtual reality (VR) is increasing rapidly, and the medium has a high level of potential for advancing the delivery of immersive evidence-based group interventions to those that most need it. Thus our specific aims are: Specific aim 1: To test the feasibility and acceptability of a group-mediated physical activity intervention delivered fully via modern VR to older adults. Specific aim 2: To examine the impact of this program on overall physical activity among older adults compared to the current standard-of-care for telehealth: the video conference meeting platform.
This is a single-arm, prospective, interventional study in cancer survivors and patients to examine the feasibility of a mobile health application, Elly (Elly Health Inc.), to reduce levels of anxiety, stress, loneliness, and social isolation. Participants will be given access to the Elly phone application developed by Elly Health Inc. and will be asked to complete questionnaires measuring quality of life at multiple timepoints during the study.
The Hans Kai trial is a mixed methods randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of the peer-led health promotion Hans Kai program for Canadian adults with or without chronic health conditions. The Hans Kai trial also aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the Hans Kai program as well as the facilitators and barriers to its implementation from the perspectives of the program participants and facilitators. The intervention (Hans Kai program) consists of an 8-week health school that program participants attend to develop health knowledge and skills. Next, program participants form Hans Kai groups of 3 or more people, who meet on a monthly basis independently in a peer-led self-sustaining model. The trial will measure the impact of Hans Kai, compared to waitlist control, on program participants' mental health; social connections; health-related knowledge and empowerment (i.e., self-efficacy and self-determination); health-promoting behaviors (i.e., diet, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, physical activity, and sleep); and clinical measures of cardio-metabolic health.