Adolescent Acts of Kindness Intervention With Reflection

Mental Health Wellness 1 Clinical Trial

Official title:

Adolescent Acts of Kindness Intervention With Reflection

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05267132
• Other study ID #: IRB#21-002091
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: August 24, 2023
• Est. completion date: July 2024

Study information

• Verified date: November 2023
• Source: University of California, Los Angeles
• Contact: Xochitl A Smola, MA
• Phone: 310-794-5104
• Email: xsmola16[@]ucla.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Adolescents will complete a 4-week intervention, during which they will either complete a kind act for others, complete a kind act for others with a reflection component, or report their daily activities three days per week. Psychological measures will be indexed before and after the intervention.

Description:

There is growing policy and scientific interest in promoting the positive benefits of kindness and prosociality. This is particularly true for adolescents, whose psychological and social maturation offers fertile ground in which kindness can be seeded early in life with potentially positive effects on their psychological health. Much of the existing efforts have focused on large-scale community engagement and service-learning programs. Investigating less costly and time-intensive alternatives is necessary to broaden engagement and access. This project aims to implement one such effort with an enhanced acts of kindness intervention for adolescents. The enhancement incorporates existing evidence that requiring adolescents to reflect upon and savor their experience of helping others promotes the positive impact of such interventions. 120 high-school-aged youth will be recruited and assigned to one of three groups (40/group). Participants will either conduct a kind act for others, complete a kind act for others with a reflection component (enhanced condition), or report their daily activities three days per week for 4 weeks. During this intervention, they will receive text messages 3 days per week instructing them to complete their respective act. Participants will provide a brief description of this act that evening, as well as complete brief surveys at the end of the week for each week of the intervention. Participants will also complete a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire and participants' parents will complete a brief survey at the start of the study to provide demographic information and an idea of what prosocial behaviors participants witnessed in their home. The investigators will use these data to assess the effects of prosocial behavior on psychological health. Conceptual frameworks from developmental psychology guide the hypothesis that prosocial behavior will influence adolescents.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 120
• Est. completion date: July 2024
• Est. primary completion date: June 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 14 Years to 17 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Between the ages of 14-17

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Mental Health Wellness 1

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention with Reflection
Participants engage in positive behaviors by completing acts of kindness for others three times per week. These acts should require effort and be outside of an individual's normal routine. Participants will then reflect on their kind acts after each week.
• Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention
Participants engage in positive behaviors by completing acts of kindness for others three times per week. These acts should require effort and be outside of an individual's normal routine.
• Daily Reports
Participants will report their daily activities three times per week. Aside from reporting at the end of the day, no changes should be made to the individual's normal routine.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Adolescent Development Lab	Los Angeles	California

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of California, Los Angeles

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Average Stress	Average stress as assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale. An average is taken across 10 items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating greater stress.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Other	Sleep Quality	Sleep quality as assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The assessment has 7 components, each scored from 0 to 3. A sum is taken across these components, such that total scores range from 0 to 21 with higher scores indicating poorer sleep.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Other	Average Social Connection	Average social connection as assessed by the relatedness subscale of the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs. An average is taken across 6 items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating greater social connection.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Primary	Average Positive Affect	Average Positive Affect as assessed by the positive affect subscale of the Affect Adjective Checklist. An average is taken across four items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating more positive affect over the week.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Secondary	Average Psychological Flourishing	Change in average psychological flourishing from baseline to one week following the intervention as assessed by Mental Health Continuum-Short Form at week 5. An average is taken across 20 items, and scores range from 1 to 6, with higher values representing greater psychological flourishing.	Baseline and one-week post intervention (elapsed time of 5 weeks)
Secondary	Average Negative Affect	Average negative affect as assessed by the negative affect subscale of the Affect Adjective Checklist. An average is taken across five items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating more negative affect over the week.	Weekly over 5 weeks