WeChat Intervention for Smartphone Addiction in College Students: a Randomized Trial (smartphone)

December 11, 2024 updated by: Guifang Jin, Anhui Medical University

Efficacy of a WeChat Public Account-based Intervention for Smartphone Addiction Among Chinese Undergraduate Students: a Randomized Controlled Trial

The goal of this clinical trial is to assess the effectiveness of an intervention based on the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model to treat smartphone addiction in college students. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Does the IMB model-based intervention via WeChat public accounts significantly reduce smartphone addiction scores compared to a control group? Does the intervention lead to an increase in motivation and behavioral skills scores among participants? Researchers will compare the intervention group, which receives IMB-enhanced content through WeChat public accounts, to the control group, which maintains regular activities, to see if there are significant improvements in addiction scores, motivation, and behavioral skills in the intervention group.

Participants will:

Be stratified by gender and randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group.

The intervention group will receive information, motivation, and behavioral skills enhancement via WeChat public accounts over a period of 6 weeks.

Both groups will be assessed for smartphone addiction scores, information-motivation-behavioral skills scores, average daily smartphone use time, sleep duration, sleep quality, and somatic and psychological symptoms before and after the intervention.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

210

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

  • China
    • Anhui
      • Hefei, Anhui, China, 230032
        • Anhui Medical University

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

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Meeting the criteria of the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), with a score of ≥31 for males and ≥33 for females indicating smartphone addiction.

College students over 18 years old. Active use of WeChat software. Voluntary participation in this study and signing of the informed consent form.

Exclusion Criteria:

Currently not enrolled in school due to reasons such as suspension. Currently participating in other research projects. Self-reported diagnosis of any neurological or psychiatric disorder.

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: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: WeChat Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model Intervention Group
The intervention group would undergo a six-week intervention program. Researchers promoted a public WeChat account to the intervention group, and participants received the intervention by following the account. They automatically received pushed articles or videos, providing them with relevant knowledge about overcoming smartphone addiction. Furthermore, they would be motivated to quit their addiction through real-life cases of smartphone addiction etc., in addition to some practical skills of overcoming.
Behavioral: WeChat Intervention Based on the IMB Model
The intervention group would undergo a six-week intervention program. Researchers promoted a public WeChat account to the intervention group, and participants received the intervention by following the account. They automatically received pushed articles or videos, providing them with relevant knowledge about overcoming smartphone addiction. Furthermore, they would be motivated to quit their addiction through real-life cases of smartphone addiction etc., in addition to some practical skills of overcoming.
No Intervention: Control group
without any intervention, maintain normal life and study state

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
smartphone addiction scale scores
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]
Smartphone Addiction Scale: The Chinese version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale - Short Version (SAS-SV), containing 10 items. Minimum score of 6, Maximum score of 60, higher scores indicate more severe smartphone addiction .
From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
average daily smartphone use time
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks
assessed as, "Average daily cell phone use in the last month."
From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks
sleep duration
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]
assessed as, "Actual sleep time per night for the last 1 month."
From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]
sleep quality
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]
assessed as, "How would you rate your sleep quality in the past month
From enrollment to the end of treatment at 6 weeks]

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Anhui Medical University

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)

March 1, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

June 30, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 8, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 11, 2024

First Posted (Estimated)

December 12, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

December 12, 2024

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 11, 2024

Last Verified

July 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 83244555
  • No.81973064 (Other Grant/Funding Number: National Natural Science Foundation of China)

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

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

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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