Recalling and Anticipating Specific Positive Events to Boost Resilience in Adolescents
- Conditions
- Specific Positive MemoriesResilienceSpecific Positive Future EventsMental Wellbeing
- Interventions
- Behavioral: Positive Events Training (PET)Behavioral: CREAtive writing Training (CREAT)
- Registration Number
- NCT05757180
- Lead Sponsor
- Prof. dr. Filip Raes
- Brief Summary
Many young people are experiencing stress-related mental health problems, with some recent studies suggesting this number is increasing. Especially now, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a significant increase in depression and anxiety in adolescents. An important way to help address this challenge is not so much to focus on trying to repair what makes young people vulnerable but to focus on building resilience. Resilience refers to the ability to successfully deal with stressful experiences. Recent research shows that being able to vividly remember and imagine positive events can buffer the negative consequences of stress, and makes a convincing case that training adolescents in recalling and anticipating positive events would promote resilience and thereby improve their mental wellbeing. And this is exactly what the current project sets out to do for the very first time. Adolescents will receive a playful group-training in school to make them better at recalling and anticipating positive events, which is expected to help them to bounce back more swiftly from challenging or otherwise stressful life events. The investigators predict that youngsters who follow our Positive Event Training will experience more positive emotions, will show improved resilience and report better mental wellbeing. The investigators will also develop a free online training protocol for teachers so that schools can provide this resilience program on their own, without the need of external professional trainers.
- Detailed Description
Not available
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- COMPLETED
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 191
- All adolescents of the selected classes of the participating schools (12-16 years; 1st and 2nd grade of secondary school) who want to take part in the study and give informed consent (own informed consent and active parental informed consent) will be allowed to take part in the study.
- To minimize the risk of too much heterogeneity in our final sample, for instance due to context factors related to the type of education, the investigators will first recruit classes of adolescents that follow general secondary education. Future studies (after PET has been properly evaluated in this study) should also be conducted in samples of adolescents following other types of secondary education.
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- PARALLEL
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Intervention group Positive Events Training (PET) Classes that will follow Positive Events Training. Control group CREAtive writing Training (CREAT) Classes that will follow Bogus Control Training.
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Change in Mental wellbeing One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention; The SWEMWBS consists of seven statements (e.g., "I felt relaxed.") about thoughts and feelings that are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS; Stewart-Brown et al., 2009) to assess mental wellbeing - The SWEMWBS consists of seven statements (e.g., "I felt relaxed.") about thoughts and feelings that are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Higher scores reflect higher mental wellbeing.
Change in Resilience 1 week before the intervention, 1 week after the intervention and 2 months after the intervention. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC, short version) to assess resilience - This scale consists of 10 items (e.g., "Dealing with stress makes me stronger.") that are rated on a 5-point Likert scale going from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very often), with higher scores indicating higher resilience.
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Change in Positive affect One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Positive Affect subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Scales (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988) to assess positive affect - The Positive Affect subscale of the PANAS consists of 10 items (words) that describe positive feelings (e.g., "excited"). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale going from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely), where with higher scores reflecting higher positive affect.
Change in Positive affect regulation One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Dampening and Savoring subscale of the Responses to Positive Affect scale, child version (RPA-C; Bijttebier et al., 2012) to assess positive affect regulation - The RPA-C consists of items reflecting both dampening items (e.g., "When you felt happy, how often did you think: "I don't deserve this"?") and savoring items responses (e.g., "When you felt happy, how often did you notice that you felt full of energy?"). All 17 items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (very often).
Change in Depressive symptoms and stress One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Lovibond \& Lovibond, 1995) to assess basic mental health to control for baseline differences in the training groups, and to explore the generalised effect of PET on levels of depressive symptoms and stress at post-intervention and at follow-up. - The DASS-21 consists of 21 items (e.g., "I felt like my life had no meaning.") that are rated on a 4-point Likert scale going from 0 (never) to 3 (almost always).
Change in Dampening One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Leuven Exeter Dampening Scale - General (LEDS, unpublished) to assess dampening.- The LEDS-G consists of 13 items (e.g., "I can only be happy if others are too.") that are rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Compared to the RPA dampening subscale, the LEDS-G aims to cover a larger variety of dampening appraisal styles.
Change in Savoring One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Savouring Items for the Four-Factor Model of the Abridged Ways Of Savoring Checklist in Response to Everyday Events (Original scale Bryant and Vernoff, 2007; Four-Factor Model Chadwick, 2012) to assess savoring. - Items (e.g., "I looked for other people to share it with.") are rated on a 7-point Likert scale going from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree), with higher scores reflecting higher levels of savoring.
Change in Anhedonia One week before the intervention, one week after the intervention and two months after the intervention Leuven Anhedonia Self-report Scale (LASS, 2nd version; Nelis, Bastin, Raes, \& Bijttebier 2018) to assess symptoms of anhedonia - The 12All 12 items (e.g., "There were few things I looked forward to.") are rated on a 5-point Likert scale going from 1 (completely untrue) to 5 (completely true) with higher scores reflecting higher levels of anhedonia.
Trial Locations
- Locations (5)
GO! Next sportschool Hasselt
🇧🇪Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
Sint Lambertuscollege
🇧🇪Bilzen, Limburg, Belgium
Scholen Kindsheid Jesu
🇧🇪Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
Pius X - instituut
🇧🇪Antwerpen, Belgium
KOBOS Secundaire Scholen
🇧🇪Kapelle-op-den-Bos, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium