Forms of Racial Discrimination Study (FORD)

University of Massachusetts, Worcester

Status: Completed

Conditions: Psychological Distress

Treatments: Behavioral: MAB Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03720600

2018026

1R36MH116678-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The project aims to evaluate a brief intervention for coping with racism-related experiences for people of color and examine momentary factors that may buffer the negative mental health impact of racism.

Full description

This study focuses on the unique experiences of people of color (e.g., Asian American, Black/African American, Latinx, Native, Multiracial), ways they manage coping with race-related stress, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of a brief, one-hour intervention focused on coping with racism. First, the study will evaluate the acceptability and impact of a brief, single-session, 1-hour intervention aimed at addressing strategies for coping with racism compared to a waitlist-control condition. The intervention will integrate culturally-adapted approaches for enhancing compassionate awareness, emotional acceptance, valued actions, and coping flexibility (CAAVAF). The study will also evaluate whether the brief CAAVAF program will be associated with increased use of CAAVAF strategies (compassionate awareness, emotional acceptance, valued action, and coping flexibility) in response to racial discrimination over time and whether the brief CAAVAF program improves mental health outcomes at the two-week follow-up. Second, the study aims to evaluate the impact of CAAVAF strategies on mental health outcomes in response to momentary reports of coping with discrimination and from pre- to two-week follow-up.

All participants will be asked to complete an online screening questionnaire, which will include informed consent, demographic questionnaires, past experiences of discrimination, and trait measures of coping. Participants will be randomized into a.) a CAAVAF program, b.) a waitlist control condition with EMA, or c.) a control condition without the CAAVAF program or EMA. Participants in the CAAVAF condition will watch a scripted CAAVAF psychoeducation video during an initial laboratory session; in contrast, participants in the waitlist control condition will watch the video in a second session (after two weeks of ecological momentary assessment). Participants in both the CAAVAF program and waitlist control condition will be given instructions on using an EMA cellphone application during the initial session for repeated momentary assessments. Following this session, participants in the EMA conditions will monitor their experiences of discrimination over two weeks, and report their mood and strategies used. Participants will then return to the lab and complete a final battery of questionnaires and a qualitative exit-interview. Participants in the control condition will only complete pre questionnaires and questionnaires at a two-week follow-up.Study findings will contribute to the existing literature by evaluating whether CAAVAF strategies are effective buffers against racism-related mental health outcomes, and whether our CAAVAF and EMA program facilitates the use of these strategies.

Enrollment: 76 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Self-identifies as a person of color (not white, European American)
• self-reported distress from racial microaggressions (score of 24 or higher on the Racial Microaggressions Scale; this score is 1 SD deviation below the mean in an unpublished dataset from a study conducted at the same institution)

Exclusion criteria

• Has lived in the U.S. for less than 5 years
• Not fluent in English
• Identifies as White, European American

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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76 participants in 3 patient groups

MAB Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in this condition will be asked to come into the laboratory twice. At Time 1 (T1), participants in this condition will watch a voice-guided PowerPoint on MAB strategies for coping with discrimination. For the following two weeks, they will be asked to complete multiple momentary assessments daily for two weeks. After two weeks, participants will return to the laboratory to complete a final battery of questionnaires and complete a qualitative exit-interview.

Treatment:

Behavioral: MAB Intervention

Waitlist-Control

Other group

Description:

Participants in the "waitlist-control" condition will be asked to come into the laboratory twice. At Time 1 (T1), participants in this condition will complete an initial set of questionnaires. For the following two weeks, they will be asked to complete multiple daily momentary assessments daily. After two weeks, participants will return to the laboratory to complete a final battery of questionnaires, watch a voice-guided PowerPoint on MAB strategies for coping with discrimination, and complete a qualitative exit-interview.

Treatment:

Behavioral: MAB Intervention

No-EMA Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in the "No-EMA Control" condition will only complete questionnaires at T1 and T2.