Music Program for Hong Kong Adolescents: Improving Emotion Regulation and Reducing Depression, Anxiety, and Loneliness

June 2, 2026 updated by: The University of Hong Kong

Using Music to Promote Young People's Emotion Regulation and Reduce Their Depressive and Anxious Symptoms and Loneliness: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial

This study is a clinical trial that aims to test and validate a music-based program called "Tuned In" in helping adolescents in Hong Kong improve their mental well-being. The researchers want to find out if the program can help participants enhance their ability to regulate their emotions, reduce mood symptoms and feelings of loneliness.

Participants in the study will be randomly assigned to either the group that receives the program right away (intervention group) or the group that waits for four weeks before receiving the program (wait list group). They will take part in a group-based weekly program for four weeks. Additionally, they will be asked to complete questionnaires before and after the program to see if there are any changes in their mental well-being. The program will be delivered by a facilitator with a psychology background, and a registered music therapist.

By addressing the gaps in mental health interventions for young people in Hong Kong, this study aims to contribute to the development of effective strategies to support their emotional well-being.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

133

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

  • Hong Kong
      • Hong Kong, Hong Kong
        • The University of Hong Kong

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

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • self-report as having problems with low mood, anxiety or loneliness
  • score 3 or above on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), which indicates psychological distress.

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: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention group
Receive the music-based program once a week for 4 weeks, each session is 60 to 90 minutes, and participants will complete the survey before- and after- the program.
Behavioral: Tuned In
The Tuned In programme is based on Russell's (1980) circumplex model of emotion, which categories emotions along the two dimensions of valence and arousal. Through psychoeducation and group discussions, participants in the programme first learn how to categorise their emotions in terms of intensity (i.e., arousal level) and positivity (i.e., valence). They then reflect on and develop a list of songs that they relate to personally and use them to increase or decrease the intensity and positivity of their emotions. In other words, the participants practise monitoring their emotional state and use music to help them modify how they feel. The programme will be conducted by a facilitator with a psychology background, and a registered music therapist.
No Intervention: Wait-list group
Complete the survey before- and after the 4-week waiting period. Then the waitlist group will also be offered the program, and invited to complete an optional post-program survey

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Emotion Regulation Skills
Time Frame: Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
To assess difficulties, strategies, and confidence in emotion regulation, we will use the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Liu et al., 2015), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation scale, and select items from Dingle and Carter's (2017) program evaluation tool.
Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mood symptoms
Time Frame: Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (Moussa et al., 2001; DASS-21) will be used to measure mood symptoms
Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
Loneliness
Time Frame: Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
The Hong Kong version of the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (Leung et al., 2008) will be used to measure loneliness
Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Anhedonia
Time Frame: Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
The Chinese version of the Snaith-Hamilton-Pleasure scale (Liu et al., 2012) will be used to measure anhedonia.
Questionnaires will be administered before the start of the program, and immediately after the program (intervention group) or after 4 weeks of wait period (wait-list group)
Program acceptability and feasibility
Time Frame: Questionnaire will be administered immediately after the program
Furthermore, we plan to examine the acceptability of the program with the Hong Kong adolescents. This will be done using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Satisfaction ratings will be collected from the participants, on a 7-point Likert scale. The questions will be on the perceived usefulness of the program, the level of interest in the program, the likelihood of them recommending the program to other adolescents, and the likelihood of them to continue using music as an emotion regulatory strategy in the future (Dingle et al., 2016). We will also use open-ended questions to obtain feedback from the participants on their experiences of the program, and ask for suggestions for improvements for a future RCT. Furthermore, as feasibility indicators, we will also record the recruitment rate and dropout rate of this trial.
Questionnaire will be administered immediately after the program

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

The University of Hong Kong

Collaborators

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The University of Queensland
Health and Medical Research Fund

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Yuan Cao, The University of Hong Kong

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)

December 18, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 16, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

August 17, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 19, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 19, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

November 27, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 4, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 2, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • EA230395
  • 10211636 (Other Grant/Funding Number: Health and Medical Research Fund)

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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