Personalized Normative Feedback for Stigma and Help-seeking

August 31, 2026 updated by: Han Oh

Developing a Personalized Normative Feedback Intervention to Increase Help-seeking for Suicidal Thoughts

People tend to care about what others think and often change our behaviors accordingly. But what if people do not have an accurate understanding of what others really think? Stigma is pervasive, especially in the Black and Asian American communities, which can prevent people from seeking help. This study explores whether correcting misperceptions (by showing what people really think) about depression and suicide can increase help-seeking behaviors among Black and Asian emerging adults who have untreated depression and suicidal thoughts.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Suicide rates have increased for Black and Asian American emerging adults in California, untreated depression contributes to this concerning trend. A major deterrent to treatment utilization is stigma, which has been known to decrease help-seeking behaviors. Black and Asian American communities have been known to have higher levels of mental health stigma than their white counterparts. People with untreated depression and suicidal thoughts often turn to the internet for help, meaning online interventions can play a crucial role in nudging individuals toward help-seeking. Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) is one such intervention that has been widely used to modify a range of health behaviors. The premise of PNF is that people generally hold exaggerated views about what their peers deem acceptable (i.e., perceived social norms), which in turn influences behavior. However, perceptions that are so often passively accepted can be challenged with gentle confrontation. PNF actively corrects these views by providing accurate information about what people actually think is acceptable, thus re-routing the social pressure toward conformity to the healthier behavior. Working closely with a community advisory board, we use survey data we collected on social norms from Black and Asian American emerging adults aged (18-29) and explore the extent to which presenting these social norms can increase help-seeking intentions and behaviors. This study will identify Black (N=80) and Asian American (N=80) emerging adults with untreated depression and/or recent suicidal ideation but have expressed no intention to seek help, and within each racial group, randomly assign half to a PNF treatment and half to the control condition. This study will test whether the PNF intervention will decrease stigma, increase intention to seek treatment, and one month later, test whether the intervention led to help-seeking behaviors. This study will also collect survey data on the acceptability, safety, and feasibility of PNF. If efficacious, the researchers expect to be able to administer this cost-effective, quick, and easy intervention to thousands of individuals to reduce stigma and increase help-seeking.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

160

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

  • Name: Hans Oh, PhD
  • Phone Number: (213) 821-1382
  • Email: hansoh@usc.edu

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90089
        • USC School of Social Work
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Hans Y. Oh, 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

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adults aged 18-29
  • Asian American
  • Black American
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Depression
  • Not currently in treatment
  • English speaking

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: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: PNF Treatment
In this survey experiment, participants will receive information on the social norms data, such as information about whether other people would be friends with someone in mental health treatment.
Behavioral: Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF)
Presenting participants with information about their perceptions of social norms, and actual data on social norms, while highlighting discrepancies, and gently confronting participants toward behavioral changes.
Active Comparator: Control
An attention control (presenting information about artificial intelligence)
Behavioral: Attention control
The participants will engage in an activity online for the same duration as the intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of participants who express intention to to seek help
Time Frame: Since the intervention occurs on a single day, the assessment will take place at baseline, and then immediately following the intervention (post-test), and then 30 days after as a follow-up assessment.
Participants will rate their intention to seek help from 12 different sources (e.g., family member, partner, pastor, friend, 9-8-8); each source will be rated using an four category ordinal item ranging from 'definitely won't do this' to 'definitely will do this'.
Since the intervention occurs on a single day, the assessment will take place at baseline, and then immediately following the intervention (post-test), and then 30 days after as a follow-up assessment.
Number of participants who engage engage in help-seeking behaviors
Time Frame: 30 day follow-up
Actually contacting one of 12 sources of help, including contacting a provider, talking to a friend, talking to a pastor, calling 9-8-8.
30 day follow-up
Perceived public stigma
Time Frame: The intervention takes place on a single day, and so the assessments will occur at baseline and immediately following the intervention (post-test) on the same day, and then 30-day follow-up.
The Discrimination and Devaluation Scale will be administered through a survey and assess whether people perceive their social norms (public stigma) differently. The 12 items in the scale will be averaged and will range from 0-3, with higher values indicating greater perceived public stigma.
The intervention takes place on a single day, and so the assessments will occur at baseline and immediately following the intervention (post-test) on the same day, and then 30-day follow-up.

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Han Oh

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Hans Oh, PhD, University of Southern California

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

  • Link, B. G., Cullen, F. T., Frank, J., & Wozniak, J. F. (1987). The social rejection of former mental patients: Understanding why labels matter. American journal of Sociology, 92(6), 1461-1500.

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)

September 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

October 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

May 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 25, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 27, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

July 6, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 3, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 31, 2026

Last Verified

August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • UP-24-00999

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.

Subscribe