Web-based Single-session Growth Mindset Intervention for Adolescent Anxiety
Examination of Web-based Single-session Growth Mindset Interventions for Reducing Adolescent Anxiety: A Four-arm Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial
Study Overview
Status
Status
Conditions
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
Intervention / Treatment
Study Type
Study Type
Enrollment (Actual)
Enrollment
Phase
Phase
- Not Applicable
Contacts and Locations
Study Contact
Study Contact
- Name: Shimin Zhu, phD
- Phone Number: +85251187809
- Email: jasmine.zhu@polyu.edu.hk
Study Locations
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-
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Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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-
Participation Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Ages Eligible for Study
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Description
Inclusion Criteria:
- secondary school students in grades 7-11;
- Chinese youth who can read and write Chinese;
- enough visual and auditory abilities to complete the intervention and assessment;
- ability to give assent to participate in the study.
Exclusion Criteria:
- no parental consent;
- inability to stay focused to complete the intervention which is approximately 45 minutes;
- intellectual disability or severe illness or pain that would lead to significant bias in students' health and mental health situation.
Study Plan
How is the study designed?
Design Details
- Primary Purpose: Prevention
- Allocation: Randomized
- Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
- Masking: None (Open Label)
Number of Arms
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / ArmParticipant Group / Arm |
Intervention / TreatmentIntervention / Treatment |
|---|---|
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Experimental: Single-session Intervention of Growth Mindset for Anxiety (SIGMA)
The SIGMA intervention group adapts the SSI-GP protocol in two ways: (a) by introducing the growth mindset of negative emotions rather than personality and (b) providing experiential process of negative emotion change.
SIGMA consists of five components: (a) an introduction to emotions and the brain for conveying a scientific understanding of emotion and growth mindset of negative emotions; (b) stories and testimonials from high-school-aged youths who described their beliefs that people's negative emotion states (e.g., anxiety, depression, and stress) are malleable, and how these mindsets influence their coping with anxiety; (c) emotion changing experience induced by short videos; (d) common questions and misconceptions about growth mindset; and (e) self-persuasion writing exercises in which the participants write notes to younger students about the growth mindset of negative emotion.
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This proposed study uses a four-arm, parallel group, cluster randomized controlled trial design to evaluate the efficacy of SIGMA compared to a web-based growth mindset SSI (SSI-GP) and an active web-based control programme.
The concurrent parallel group structure assures that the different groups take part in their respective intervention at the same time.
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Experimental: Single-session Intervention on growth mindset of personality (SSI-GP)
The SSI-GP intervention group uses the intervention protocol of Project Personality.
Two bilingual native English and Chinese speakers translated it into Chinese and made adaptations to better fit the local context.
The SSI-GP consist of five components: (a) an introduction to the brain about the potential of neuroplasticity and behavioural change; (b) written testimonials from older, high-school-aged youths of their belief in change of personality; (c) additional vignettes written by older youths about how growth mindset of personality helped them succeed following setbacks; (d) overview of common questions and misconceptions about growth mindset; and (e) an exercise of writing notes to younger students about the malleability of people's personal traits.
|
This proposed study uses a four-arm, parallel group, cluster randomized controlled trial design to evaluate the efficacy of SIGMA compared to a web-based growth mindset SSI (SSI-GP) and an active web-based control programme.
The concurrent parallel group structure assures that the different groups take part in their respective intervention at the same time.
|
|
Active Comparator: Active control group: Support therapy (ST)
The control condition is a structurally similar web-based session of supportive therapy.
The goals of supportive therapy are to encourage the client to identify and express feelings and to share their emotions-both positive and negative-with close others.
The ST group does not teach or emphasize specific skills or beliefs.
The active control group includes the same number of activities as do the SIGMA and SSI-GP interventions.
Also, to mirror the intervention groups as closely as possible, supportive therapy includes vignettes written by similar school-aged youths, who describe times when they benefited from sharing their feelings with friends or family members.
|
This proposed study uses a four-arm, parallel group, cluster randomized controlled trial design to evaluate the efficacy of SIGMA compared to a web-based growth mindset SSI (SSI-GP) and an active web-based control programme.
The concurrent parallel group structure assures that the different groups take part in their respective intervention at the same time.
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Experimental: SIGMA-BOOSTER
The SIGMA-BOOSTER group receives the same intervention as the SIGMA group, the only difference is that the SIGMA-BOOSTER group receives booster messages with core intervention content every 2 weeks between the 2-week post-test and the 2-month follow-up survey, that is, a total of 5 weekly booster messages are sent to the SIGMA-BOOSTER group, which will help us determine the most effective way of implementing the intervention.
|
This proposed study uses a four-arm, parallel group, cluster randomized controlled trial design to evaluate the efficacy of SIGMA compared to a web-based growth mindset SSI (SSI-GP) and an active web-based control programme.
The concurrent parallel group structure assures that the different groups take part in their respective intervention at the same time.
|
What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
|
Anxiety Symptoms
Time Frame: baseline
|
Anxiety symptoms measured by the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) are the primary outcome.
The GAD-7 scale includes seven items that assess whether anxiety symptoms have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Example items were "Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge", and "Not being able to stop or control worrying".
GAD-7 is the self-rating scale and effectively reflects symptom severity in adolescents; it is highly correlated with clinician-administered ratings of anxiety symptoms.
It is brief and suitable for self-report study.
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
baseline
|
|
Anxiety Symptoms
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
Anxiety symptoms measured by the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) are the primary outcome.
The GAD-7 scale includes seven items that assess whether anxiety symptoms have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Example items were "Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge", and "Not being able to stop or control worrying".
GAD-7 is the self-rating scale and effectively reflects symptom severity in adolescents; it is highly correlated with clinician-administered ratings of anxiety symptoms.
It is brief and suitable for self-report study.
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
2-week post-intervention
|
|
Anxiety Symptoms
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
Anxiety symptoms measured by the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) are the primary outcome.
The GAD-7 scale includes seven items that assess whether anxiety symptoms have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Example items were "Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge", and "Not being able to stop or control worrying".
GAD-7 is the self-rating scale and effectively reflects symptom severity in adolescents; it is highly correlated with clinician-administered ratings of anxiety symptoms.
It is brief and suitable for self-report study.
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
8-week post-intervention
|
|
Depression, and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts
Time Frame: baseline
|
The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is used to measure participants' depression level and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
The PHQ-9 scale includes nine items that assessed whether the depression symptoms and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Depression level is indexed by the sum of the first 8 items, while the last item indicates the suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
Example items of the PHQ-9 were "Little interest or pleasure in doing things", "Feeling down, depressed or hopeless", and "Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way".
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baseline
|
|
Depression, and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is used to measure participants' depression level and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
The PHQ-9 scale includes nine items that assessed whether the depression symptoms and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Depression level is indexed by the sum of the first 8 items, while the last item indicates the suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
Example items of the PHQ-9 were "Little interest or pleasure in doing things", "Feeling down, depressed or hopeless", and "Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way".
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2-week post-intervention
|
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Depression, and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is used to measure participants' depression level and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
The PHQ-9 scale includes nine items that assessed whether the depression symptoms and suicidal/self-hurting thoughts have bothered the individual in the previous two weeks, ranging the frequency from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day).
Depression level is indexed by the sum of the first 8 items, while the last item indicates the suicidal/self-hurting thoughts.
Example items of the PHQ-9 were "Little interest or pleasure in doing things", "Feeling down, depressed or hopeless", and "Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way".
|
8-week post-intervention
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Secondary Outcome Measures
Secondary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
|
Perceived control
Time Frame: baseline
|
The Anxiety Control Questionnaire-Emotion Control (ACQ-EC) is a 15-item questionnaire that measures how much perceived control participants have over their anxiety.
It is one of the 3 validated subscales of the Anxiety Control questionnaire, and contains 5 items (e.g., I am able to control my level of anxiety), including one reversed item (i.e., When I am anxious, I find it hard to focus on anything other than my anxiety), rated from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
The scale has a well-validated factor structure in a non-clinically selected sample, is strongly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms, and has demonstrated good internal consistency in previous investigations.
Cronbach's alpha was .73.
|
baseline
|
|
Perceived control
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
The Anxiety Control Questionnaire-Emotion Control (ACQ-EC) is a 15-item questionnaire that measures how much perceived control participants have over their anxiety.
It is one of the 3 validated subscales of the Anxiety Control questionnaire, and contains 5 items (e.g., I am able to control my level of anxiety), including one reversed item (i.e., When I am anxious, I find it hard to focus on anything other than my anxiety), rated from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
The scale has a well-validated factor structure in a non-clinically selected sample, is strongly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms, and has demonstrated good internal consistency in previous investigations.
Cronbach's alpha was .73.
|
2-week post-intervention
|
|
Perceived control
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
The Anxiety Control Questionnaire-Emotion Control (ACQ-EC) is a 15-item questionnaire that measures how much perceived control participants have over their anxiety.
It is one of the 3 validated subscales of the Anxiety Control questionnaire, and contains 5 items (e.g., I am able to control my level of anxiety), including one reversed item (i.e., When I am anxious, I find it hard to focus on anything other than my anxiety), rated from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
The scale has a well-validated factor structure in a non-clinically selected sample, is strongly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms, and has demonstrated good internal consistency in previous investigations.
Cronbach's alpha was .73.
|
8-week post-intervention
|
|
Hopelessness
Time Frame: baseline
|
The four-item helplessness subscale of the Demoralization Scale will be used to measure the participants' faith in the future.
Each item scores on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and the mean of all 4 items is taken to measure the hopelessness, with a higher score meaning correspondingly higher level of hopelessness.
An example item is "I feel hopeless".
The Cronbach's alpha of the Chinese version of this helplessness subscale was .72.
|
baseline
|
|
Hopelessness
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
The four-item helplessness subscale of the Demoralization Scale will be used to measure the participants' faith in the future.
Each item scores on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and the mean of all 4 items is taken to measure the hopelessness, with a higher score meaning correspondingly higher level of hopelessness.
An example item is "I feel hopeless".
The Cronbach's alpha of the Chinese version of this helplessness subscale was .72.
|
2-week post-intervention
|
|
Hopelessness
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
The four-item helplessness subscale of the Demoralization Scale will be used to measure the participants' faith in the future.
Each item scores on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and the mean of all 4 items is taken to measure the hopelessness, with a higher score meaning correspondingly higher level of hopelessness.
An example item is "I feel hopeless".
The Cronbach's alpha of the Chinese version of this helplessness subscale was .72.
|
8-week post-intervention
|
|
Attitude towards seeking help
Time Frame: baseline
|
We use two items from the Attitude toward Seeking Counselling Help Assessment (ATSCHA) to measure participants' understanding of counselling and attitudes toward seeking counselling help.
An example item is "If I believed I was having a mental breakdown, my first inclination would be to get professional attention".
Cronbach's alpha was .72.
We develop a brief scale including three items to assess participants' help-seeking behaviour.
The three items are "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from teachers", "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from social workers/counsellors", and "Professional counseling and treatments can help people improve mental health".
This scale will be rated on a 7-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
|
baseline
|
|
Attitude towards seeking help
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
We use two items from the Attitude toward Seeking Counselling Help Assessment (ATSCHA) to measure participants' understanding of counselling and attitudes toward seeking counselling help.
An example item is "If I believed I was having a mental breakdown, my first inclination would be to get professional attention".
Cronbach's alpha was .72.
We develop a brief scale including three items to assess participants' help-seeking behaviour.
The three items are "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from teachers", "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from social workers/counsellors", and "Professional counseling and treatments can help people improve mental health".
This scale will be rated on a 7-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
|
2-week post-intervention
|
|
Attitude towards seeking help
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
We use two items from the Attitude toward Seeking Counselling Help Assessment (ATSCHA) to measure participants' understanding of counselling and attitudes toward seeking counselling help.
An example item is "If I believed I was having a mental breakdown, my first inclination would be to get professional attention".
Cronbach's alpha was .72.
We develop a brief scale including three items to assess participants' help-seeking behaviour.
The three items are "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from teachers", "when I encounter difficulties, I will not ask help from social workers/counsellors", and "Professional counseling and treatments can help people improve mental health".
This scale will be rated on a 7-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
|
8-week post-intervention
|
|
Psychological wellbeing
Time Frame: baseline
|
The short version Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS-14) will be used to measure the extent to which participants generally experience well-being states.
The WEMWBS includes 14 items, scoring on a 5-pont Likert scale ranging from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time), the average of all 14 items indicates the well-being of the participants.
Sample item is "I have been feeling optimistic about the future".
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
baseline
|
|
Psychological wellbeing
Time Frame: 2-week post-intervention
|
The short version Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS-14) will be used to measure the extent to which participants generally experience well-being states.
The WEMWBS includes 14 items, scoring on a 5-pont Likert scale ranging from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time), the average of all 14 items indicates the well-being of the participants.
Sample item is "I have been feeling optimistic about the future".
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
2-week post-intervention
|
|
Psychological wellbeing
Time Frame: 8-week post-intervention
|
The short version Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS-14) will be used to measure the extent to which participants generally experience well-being states.
The WEMWBS includes 14 items, scoring on a 5-pont Likert scale ranging from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time), the average of all 14 items indicates the well-being of the participants.
Sample item is "I have been feeling optimistic about the future".
Cronbach's alpha was .93.
|
8-week post-intervention
|
Collaborators and Investigators
Sponsor
Sponsor
Study record dates
Study Major Dates
Study Start (Actual)
Study Start
Primary Completion (Actual)
Primary Completion
Study Completion (Actual)
Study Completion
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
First Submitted
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
First Posted (Actual)
First Posted
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (Actual)
Last Update Posted
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
Last Verified
Last Verified
More Information
Terms related to this study
Additional Relevant MeSH Terms
Other Study ID Numbers
Other Study ID Numbers
- HSEARS20201004001-01
Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)
Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?
Drug and device information, study documents
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product
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