NettOpp: The Development and Evaluation of an App-based Selective Intervention for Adolescents Exposed to Cyberbullying

May 6, 2026 updated by: Henriette Kyrrestad, University of Tromso
The aim of the project is to develop and evaluate an app-based intervention for adolescents who have been exposed to cyberbullying. The overarching goal is to offer a low-threshold intervention, called NettOpp, that is easy accessible and free to use for every junior high school student who has experienced cyberbullying in Norway.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The main aim of the intervention is to increase coping strategies for adolescents who have been exposed to cyberbullying. More specifically the aims are to increase 1) knowledge about cyberbullying, 2) help-seeking behavior, 3) coping strategies with cyberbullying, 4) to reduce mental health problems, and 5) cyberbullying, and 6) to increase self-esteem and the 7) sleeping quality of the adolescents.

To evaluate the mobile application three studies will be conducted: A lab test, a pilot study, and a larger effectiveness study with a follow-up examination after 3 months. The lab test will be conducted to examine the quality of the prototype of the app in order to find out if adjustments have to be made. Thereafter, a pilot study will be conducted with adolescents that were exposed to cyberbullying in the past six months. The pilot study will use a pre-post design.The effectiveness study will be conducted as a randomized controlled trial with an intervention group and a waiting-list control group.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

709

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Norway
      • Tromsø, Norway
        • UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

11 years to 16 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adolescents whose guardians have given consent and who agree to take part in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

  • severe developmental or cognitive challenges

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention group receiving NettOpp
The effectiveness study will be conducted as a randomized controlled trial with an intervention group and a waiting-list control group. Data will be collected at baseline (T1, pre intervention) and after about 2 weeks of intervention (T2, post intervention). A follow-up evaluation (T3) will be conducted after about 3 months to examine if the effects were stable over time.
Device: NettOpp
NettOpp is a mobile application for adolescents aged 11-16 years who have been exposed to cyberbullying or cyberaggression.
No Intervention: Control group
The control group will receive the intervention after study completion.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire)
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: SDQ (Goodman, 1997): A 25 item self-report assessing mental health and psychosocial functioning in 11-17 years old adolescents on a three point scale.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
CATS (Child and Adolescent Trauma Screening)
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: CATS (Sachser et al., 2017): A 20 item self-report assessing posttraumatic stress-symptoms for 7-17 year old adolescents on a four point scale.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
WHO-5 (WHO-Five Well-being Index)
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: WHO-5 (WHO, 1998): A five item self-report questionnaire assessing well-being on a six point scale.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Help-seeking behavior
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: three self-report items measuring if they sought help, who they sought help from, and if they received the help they needed.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Cyberbullying
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: Cyberbullying (Olweus, 1993): One self-report item measuring the frequency of cyberbullying exposure.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Self-liking and Competence Scale
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: Self-liking and Competence Scale (Silvera, Neilands, & Perry, 2001; Tafarodi & Swann, 2001): A 20 item self-report assessing self-liking and self-competence.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Sleeping quality
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: Sleeping quality will be measured with six questions with different response categories from the Bergen Child Study (Hysing, Harvey, Stormark, Pallesen, & Sivertsen, 2018).
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
CCQ (Cyberbullying Coping Questionnaire)
Time Frame: From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.
Adolescents: CCQ (Jacobs, Völlink, Dehue, & Lechner, 2015): A 17 item self-report assessing how often the adolescents use the different cyberbullying coping strategies.
From baseline to 2 weeks after intervention, and after 3 months as follow-up.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Tromso

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Henriette Kyrrestad, PhD, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 4, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 14, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 22, 2019

First Posted (Actual)

November 25, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 11, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 6, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 161212 NettOpp - effektstudie
  • 545417 (Other Identifier: NSD - Norwegian Centre for Research Data)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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