Efficacy of Mountain Craft Training at Enhancing the Resilience and Physio-psychological Well-being of Children From Low-income Families

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Well-being; Resilience; Children

Treatments: Other: Intervention; Other: Placebo

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06286787

HSEARS20221110002

Details and patient eligibility

About

It is imperative to offer adequate community resources and psychosocial support, with a particular focus on enhancing resilience for children from low-income families. This study aims to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of mountain craft training in enhancing resilience and self-esteem, reducing depressive symptoms, and improving the physical health of children from low-income families.

Full description

It is imperative to offer adequate community resources and psychosocial support, with a particular focus on enhancing resilience for children from low-income families. This study aims to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of mountain craft training in enhancing resilience and self-esteem, reducing depressive symptoms, and improving the physical health of children from low-income families. This will be a pilot RCT using a two-group pre- and post-test within-subject design. The investigators plan to recruit 40 children in the Kwai Tsing District to participate in this study via the Asbury Methodist Social Service. Participants in the intervention group will be invited to join the mountain craft training programme. The research team will work with Mountain & Stream (https://www.mtandstream.com/) to offer a tailor-made hiking training programme for Form 1 students. Participants will be invited to join a control intervention that mimics the time and attention received by participants in the intervention group but will be designed to have no specific effect on the outcome variables. The investigators hypothesise that participants who receive mountain craft training (six sessions) over 3 months will report significant improvements in: (i) resilience, (ii) self-esteem; (iii) depressive symptoms, and (iv) physical well-being compared with those in the placebo control group at the 6-month follow-up assessment.

Enrollment: 40 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 14 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Form 1 students
• able to speak Cantonese and read Chinese, and
• from low-income families (with a half-median monthly household income or the recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance)

Exclusion criteria

• Children with identified cognitive or learning problems, chronic illness, or physical disabilities

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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40 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the intervention group will be invited to join the mountain craft training programme.

Treatment:

Other: Intervention

Placebo control group

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants will be invited to join a control intervention that mimics the time and attention received by participants in the intervention group but will be designed to have no specific effect on the outcome variables.

Treatment:

Other: Placebo