Congitive Behavioral Therapy Workshop for Content Moderators

April 26, 2024 updated by: Carlos López-Pinar, Universidad Europea de Valencia

Acceptability and Feasibility of a Congitive Behavioral Therapy Workshop for Content Moderators: A Pilot Study

Professional content moderators play a critical role in preventing Internet users from being exposed to more sensitive content. However, recent literature has shown that this work places content moderators at increased risk for several psychological outcomes, including intrusive thoughts and vicarious stress trauma. This pilot study will assess the acceptability and feasibility of a brief (4-session) cognitive-behavioral workshop to reduce these risks.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The growing amount of user-generated content is forcing companies to hire more and more content moderators (CMs). There is ample empirical evidence that exposure to the trauma of others at work affects well-being and mental health , and research focused on CMs suggests that they experience similar effects as other professionals. This includes an increased risk of developing syndromes such as secondary posttraumatic stress, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Recent literature, although limited, indicates that CMs are already using coping strategies such as creating boundaries between work and personal life, although they expressed a preference for individual therapy with specialized professionals. However, this initial work points to the need for technology companies to develop prevention programs based on preventing exposure to traumatic content (.

Therefore, a CBT workshop consisting of four 90-minute group sessions was designed specifically to prevent work-related consequences in a small sample of content moderators. The workshop will have a cognitive-behavioral orientation, which has been shown to be more effective for posttraumatic symptoms. Psychological distress, PTSD symptoms, job satisfaction, and coping strategies will be measured before and after the intervention to assess the feasibility of the workshop.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

12

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 Contact

Study Locations

  • Spain
      • Salamanca, Spain, 37002
        • Recruiting
        • MEGA cloud services
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Carlos López-Pinar, PhD

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Actively work as a professional content moderator, for at least 6 months.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Presence of a psychotic or personality disorder as defined by DSM-5 criteria.
  • Receive another psychological treatment during the time of the study.

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: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Cognitive Behavioural Workshop
The experimental group will attend 4 weekly group sessions of 90 minutes each. The intervention will be delivered by a Ph.D. clinical psychologist with over 15 years of clinical experience.
Behavioral: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Workshop for Content Moderators

This 4-session group workshop is based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It consists of four sessions:

  1. Presentation. Scientific evidence of psychological consequences on content moderatos. Psicoeducation on the effects of vicarious trauma exposure.
  2. Presentation of the cognitive model. Identification/operationalization of thoughts. Discussion of possible irrational thoughts.
  3. Psychoeducation of emotions and their adaptive function. Behavioral strategies of emotions: exposure therapies and behavioral activation.
  4. The role of social support. Strategies for appropriate work and sleep hygiene. Strategies for maintaining gains. Farewell.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10)
Time Frame: Week 0, week 4, and week 12
It is a simple measure of psychological distress. The K10 scale involves 10 questions about emotional states each with a five-level response scale. The measure can be used as a brief screen to identify levels of distress. The tool can be given to patients to complete, or alternatively the questions can be read to the patient by the practitioner.
Week 0, week 4, and week 12

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Work Satisfaction Scale, JobStat'73
Time Frame: Week 0, week 4, and week 12
It is made up of 5 questions related to their satisfaction with the job, possible continuity in it and whether they would recommend it to others.
Week 0, week 4, and week 12
Coping Mechanisms Scale
Time Frame: Week 0, week 4, and week 12
It measures how the participant cope with stress, collecting data from 16 strategies.
Week 0, week 4, and week 12
PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C)
Time Frame: Week 0, week 4, and week 12
The PCL-C includes 17 items assessing a variety of symp- tomatic responses to stress, and respondents self-reported the extent to which they were bothered by these symptoms, within the past month, on a scale from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely).
Week 0, week 4, and week 12

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Universidad Europea de Valencia

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Carlos López-Pinar, PhD, Universidad Europea de Valencia

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

  • Léonard, M.-J., Saumier, D., & Brunet, A. (2020). When the lawyer becomes traumatized: A scoping review. SAGE Open, 10(3), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020957032
  • Lewis C, Roberts NP, Andrew M, Starling E, Bisson JI. Psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder in adults: systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2020 Mar 10;11(1):1729633. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2020.1729633. eCollection 2020.
  • Seigfried-Spellar, K. C. (2018) Assessing the Psychological Well-being and Coping Mechanisms of Law Enforcement Investigators vs. Digital Forensic Examiners of Child Pornography Investigations. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 33, 215-226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-017-9248-7
  • Steiger, M., Bharucha, T. J., Venkatagiri, S., Riedl, M. J., & Lease, M. (2021). The psychological well-being of content moderators: The emotional labor of commercial moderation and avenues for improving support. In CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-14). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445092
  • Spence, R., Bifulco, A., Bradbury, P., Martellozzo, E., & DeMarco, J. (2023a). The psychological impacts of content moderation on content moderators: A qualitative study. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 17(4), Article X. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2023-X-X

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 (Estimated)

May 1, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2024

Study Completion (Estimated)

August 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 16, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 22, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

April 25, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 30, 2024

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 26, 2024

Last Verified

April 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2024-624

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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