SEE Change Evaluation - Impacts of Personal Agency Training on Ugandan Entrepreneurs (SEE-Change)

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Economic Hardship; Stress; Well-Being, Psychological

Treatments: Behavioral: SEE Change Business and Personal Agency Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05958225

IRB00024029

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is proposed as an individually randomized control trial (RCT) designed to assess the short-term impacts (follow up at six months) of a personal agency training on a range of economic and health outcomes for micro and small entrepreneurs in Western and Central Uganda. Participants will be randomly selected and assigned to either the intervention group (n=400) or wait-listed control group (n=400). The intervention will include the standard Empowered Entrepreneur training curriculum which includes personal agency alongside basic business training that has been developed by the SEE Change team. This training will take place over three consecutive days (approximately 25 hours of content).

Full description

The investigators propose to examine the comparative impacts of a personal agency and business training curricula on outcome measures focused in three areas 1) business related outcomes; 2) personal agency and flourishing; and 3) social spillover impacts.

Aim 1: Assess changes in business related outcomes including improved sales and profit, enhanced business skills and behaviors, and business-related goal setting.

Aim 2: Assess changes in personal agency and flourishing as determined through personal goal setting and psychometric measurements of self-esteem, self-confidence, grit and flourishing.

Aim 3: Assess social spillover impacts of the training on depression, anxiety and stress, and changes in gender norms and attitudes.

Enrollment: 814 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 55 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Small or micro entrepreneur;
• Business has been in operation/existence for at least the past 12 months;
• Entrepreneur is between the ages of 18 and 55;
• Entrepreneur has the ability to participate in all training activities;
• Informed consent is obtained from the entrepreneur;
• The entrepreneur is not planning to leave the area in the next 12 months;
• The entrepreneur has access to a phone for contact purposes;

Exclusion criteria

• Entrepreneur is unable to provide informed consent or informed consent is not obtained;
• Entrepreneur is not considered a small or micro entrepreneur;
• Entrepreneur is younger than 18 years of age;
• Business has been in operation/existence for less than 12 months;
• Entrepreneur's primary business is farming (anything related to seasonal crop production);
• Entrepreneur is planning to leave the area in the next 12 months;

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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814 participants in 2 patient groups

Personal agency, leadership and business training

Experimental group

Description:

Entrepreneurs will participate in a 3 day residential training (based on SEE Change's Empowered Entrepreneur training) that integrates personal agency with basic business and leadership topics. Participants will also get weekly support messages on their phone for 6 weeks and a check in by a training once a month for 3 months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: SEE Change Business and Personal Agency Training

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

For this study, the control participants will not receive any intervention.