Student Anxiety & Stress Study (SASS)

Wayne State University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Somatic Symptom Disorder; Anxiety

Treatments: Behavioral: Mindfulness Meditation Training; Behavioral: Emotional Awareness & Expression Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03986125

1904002172

Details and patient eligibility

About

The present study is a randomized clinical trial of an emotional awareness and expression intervention (EAET) and a mindfulness meditation intervention (MMT) for Wayne State University students with anxiety and somatic symptoms. Each of these treatments will be compared to a wait list control condition and to one another to evaluate how well the treatments improve physical and psychological symptoms, stress, and interpersonal functioning of 120 Wayne State University students at 4-week and 8-weeks post-randomization. This research is intended to provide an evidence-based approach to working with emotions to improve both anxiety and somatic symptoms in young adults and will illuminate how EAET compares to the commonly used mindfulness training. It is hypothesized that both active interventions will be superior to no treatment, and differences between the two treatments will be explored.

Full description

Anxiety is an increasingly common condition among college students and is often accompanied by somatic symptoms. These conditions impair students' social, psychological, and academic functioning and outcomes. Although students are utilizing campus and community mental health centers at increasing rates, these resources are strained. The present study aims to test the efficacy of two brief treatment options for students.

Integrating techniques from several emotion-focused therapies, the investigators have developed and tested an intervention encouraging the awareness and expression of habitually suppressed or avoided emotions. This Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) has been evaluated with various patient populations including fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pelvic pain, and medically unexplained symptoms. Results of these trials suggest that the intervention is efficacious in improving physical and psychological well-being, and is equal to or superior to other psychological interventions for somatic conditions. The present study seeks to advance the EAET literature by evaluating the efficacy of the intervention for a broader population and by employing a strong and conceptually different comparison condition: mindfulness meditation training.

Enrollment: 53 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria: university student, reporting at least moderate levels of anxiety (GAD-7) and somatic symptoms (PHQ-15) -

Exclusion Criteria: psychosis, lack of fluency with spoken and written English language

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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53 participants in 3 patient groups

Emotional Awareness & Expression Therapy

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will attend three individual sessions focused on becoming aware of and expressing avoided or conflicted emotions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Emotional Awareness & Expression Therapy

Mindfulness Meditation Training

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will attend three individual sessions focused on increasing equanimity and compassion and reducing self-judgement.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mindfulness Meditation Training

Wait-List Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will receive the intervention of their choice following assessment at four and eight weeks after randomization.