Stress Management for College Students

Boise State University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Distress, Emotional

Treatments: Behavioral: Virtual Control Task; Behavioral: Virtual Sequential Emotional Processing Task

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT06888141

U01GM152530 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

IRB24-765

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a virtual task can reduce distress in college students. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Will those who complete the virtual task have less distress?
2. Will men and women both benefit equally from the virtual task?

Researchers will compare the virtual task to a control task (another virtual task that we expect will not impact distress) to see if distress differs.

Participants will spend 20 minutes engaging in the virtual task (or the control task) on 3 different days all within one week. They will complete a survey about their well-being before starting the first virtual task and again ~6 weeks afterward.

Full description

Easily accessible and cost effective strategies for reducing emotional distress and improving stress tolerance in college students and the population generally are desired. The scalability and feasibility of virtual interventions hold promise for reaching segments of the population that find one-on-one psychotherapy aversive. Males in particular have higher perceived treatment stigma relative to women and find may typical traditional therapeutic processes incongruent with their masculine identity and values. The research team has designed an innovative, self-directed, virtual intervention to reduce distress and stress intolerance. The intervention consists of a set of virtual tasks which reflect the Sequential Model of Emotional Processing presented with language, imagery and content that engages men.

Using a randomized clinical trials design, this pilot project will compare the effects of the virtual intervention with a virtual control task on emotional well-being outcomes in college students.

Enrollment: 500 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years of age or older
• college student

Exclusion criteria

• Younger than 18 years of age

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

---

500 participants in 2 patient groups

Virtual Intervention

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Virtual Sequential Emotional Processing Task

Virtual Control

Sham Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Virtual Control Task