Internet-based Self-help After Spousal Bereavement or Divorce (LIVIA)

University of Bern

Status: Completed

Conditions: Prolonged Grief Symptoms

Treatments: Other: Internet-based self-help

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02900534

Basec2016-00180

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of an internet-based self-help intervention for older adults with prolonged grief symptoms after spousal bereavement or separation/divorce. The study design is a randomized trial with a waiting control condition of 12 weeks and a follow-up after 6 months. The investigators will test the following main hypotheses:

1. The intervention group shows a significant decrease in grief symptoms, psychological distress, depression symptoms and embitterment, and a significant increase in life satisfaction, as well as session related outcomes from baseline to 12 weeks post intervention assessment.
2. The effects in the intervention group are larger than the effects in the waiting control group.
3. These effects are stable from the post measure at 12 weeks to the 6-month follow-up.

Enrollment: 110 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 40+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Marital bereavement or separation/divorce. Both events should have happened more than 6 months before participating in the study.
• Seeking support for coping with grief symptoms
• Internet access
• Mastery of the German language
• Informed Consent

Exclusion criteria

• Acute suicidality (BDI Suicide item > 1 or suicidal ideation in the telephone interview)
• No emergency plan: In the telephone interview, an emergency plan will be developed which specifies a health care professional, who participants can turn to in an acute crisis. If no such person or health care service can be found, individuals will be excluded from the intervention.
• Severe psychological or somatic disorders which need immediate treatment.
• Concomitant psychotherapy (participants may take part in the self-help intervention, but will not be included in the study.)
• Prescribed drugs against depression or anxiety lead to an exclusion if prescription or dosage has changed in the month prior or during the self-help intervention.
• Inability to follow the procedures of the study, e.g. due to comprehension problems

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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110 participants in 2 patient groups

Internet-based self-help

Experimental group

Description:

The self-help programme consists of 10 text-based sessions and one supportive E-Mail a week. The programme employs cognitive-behavioural interventions. The theoretical background is the Dual Process Model by Stroebe and Schutt (1999).

Treatment:

Other: Internet-based self-help

Waiting control group

No Intervention group