SkillJoy Clinical Trial

Skidmore College

Status: Completed

Conditions: Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: SkillJoy Intervention; Behavioral: Active Self-Monitoring Control Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05040061

2108-974

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a randomized controlled trial comparing a smartphone-delivered savoring intervention (SkillJoy) for Generalized Anxiety Disorder to an active treatment control.

Full description

The current study seeks to determine if the positivity intervention SkillJoy, a smartphone-based, ecological momentary intervention (EMI), can reduce worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms, increase positive emotion and wellbeing, improve reinforcement and probabilistic learning, increase savoring and reduce kill-joy thinking, and decrease avoidance of negative emotional shifts relative to an active treatment control in a GAD sample. Skills for generating positive emotion may reduce symptoms and increase well-being for those with GAD. To test this approach, participants with GAD were randomly assigned to either a savoring treatment or a self-monitoring control.The savoring treatment consisted of an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) for learning and practicing savoring skills-SkillJoy. SkillJoy prompted participants to attend to positive aspects of the present moment, plan and engage in enjoyable activities, record and reflect on positive experiences, note events that turned out well, and look forward to positive events. The active self-monitoring control EMI consisted of similar activities, but they all omitted savoring practices. These activities included attending to any current thoughts and feelings, planning everyday activities, remembering and recording daily events, and anticipating important events. Both EMIs were delivered by apps on participants' smartphones for seven days with 30th day follow-up. Secondarily, the current study will assess differences between those with GAD and non-anxious controls on a computerized probabilistic reinforcement learning task and baseline savoring questionnaires.

Enrollment: 85 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Meet clinical criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder on the GAD-Q-IV and the GAD section of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI).
• Must be at least 18 years old to participate.
• Pregnant women will be allowed to participate.

Exclusion criteria

• They do not meet criteria for GAD on the GAD-Q-IV and the INI or do not fall one standard deviation below the subject pool mean on the GAD-Q-IV (i.e., they fall between these two scores).
• They are younger than 18 years of age.
• They do not speak English.
• They are adults unable to consent.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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85 participants in 2 patient groups

SkillJoy Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The savoring treatment consisted of an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) for learning and practicing savoring skills-SkillJoy. SkillJoy prompted participants to attend to positive aspects of the present moment, plan and engage in enjoyable activities, record and reflect on positive experiences, note events that turned out well, and look forward to positive events.

Treatment:

Behavioral: SkillJoy Intervention

Active Self-Monitoring Control Intervention

Active Comparator group

Description:

The active self-monitoring control EMI consisted of similar activities, but they all omitted savoring practices. These activities included attending to any current thoughts and feelings, planning everyday activities, remembering and recording daily events, and anticipating important events.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Active Self-Monitoring Control Intervention