Modifiers and Mechanisms of Loneliness Interventions

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Loneliness

• Registration Number: NCT05812989
• Lead Sponsor: University of Rochester

Brief Summary

A specific aim of this research is to identify the role of emotion regulation in response to social threat in caregivers' response to a behavioral coaching intervention for loneliness. A second aim of the study is to determine the benefit of a digitized, social engagement prioritization tool for improving coaches' intervention fidelity and caregiver outcomes. This study is funded through the Pilot Award Program of the Rochester Roybal Center for Social Ties \& Aging Research, a UR Center funded by the National Institute on Aging by grant P30AG064103.

Detailed Description

The objective of this Stage III mechanistic study is to help identify additional modifiable targets and scalable approaches to support further development of highly effective, mechanistic-informed approaches to reducing loneliness and improving social connectedness in caregivers. This study is a Stage III, 19-month 2 (groups) x 2 (assessment timepoints) randomized clinical trial (RCT) aimed at identifying whether lonely caregivers' capacity, is associated with the degree to which loneliness is reduced in response to social engagement intervention (S-ENG). Further, the study will address whether a digitized, social engagement prioritization tool (C4C) used in the first session of S-ENG can improve intervention fidelity and

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2023-03-31
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-03-31
• Study First Posted: 2023-04-14
• Study Start: 2023-10-18
• Primary Completion: 2025-05-30
• Study Completion: 2025-05-30
• Status Verified: 2025-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-07-03
• Last Update Posted: 2025-07-09

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 53

Inclusion Criteria

• Caregiver (age 50 or older) for a community-dwelling loved one with Alzheimer's disease or related dementia (ADRD), living with (or in close proximity to) the person with ADRD.
• Elevated caregiving distress: above population mean (>11) on 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and/or at least moderate caregiver strain (score >= 5) on the Modified Caregiver Strain Index.
• Social disconnection: UCLA Loneliness Scale: Short Form score of > 5.

Exclusion Criteria

• Non-English speaking
• Significant cognitive impairment
• Major cardiovascular conditions that may interfere with reliable assessment of HRV (e.g., congestive heart failure, pacemaker, prior myocardial infarction).

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
High frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV)	11 weeks	HF-HRV is derived by spectral analysis of the electrocardiograph (ECG) waveform collected during a rest period, and is a measure of parasympathetic control of the heart; Higher resting HF-HRV (absolute power of the high-frequency band (0.15-0.4 Hz) in ms-squared) reflects greater parasympathetic regulation of the heart.
Loneliness	11 weeks	UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3, which assesses self-reported loneliness. 20 items, rated as to how often the participant has felt a certain way in the prior month (e.g., "How often do you feel alone?") -- "never" (1), "rarely" (2), "sometimes" (3), or "often" (4). Higher scores indicate greater loneliness. However, some individual items must be reverse-coded so that higher total scores reflect greater loneliness (i.e., 1=4, 2=3, 3=2, 4=1). These items (e.g., "How often do you feel there are people you can turn to?") are items 1,5,6,9,10,15,16,19,20. Total scores range from 20 to 80, with higher scores representing a worse outcome (i.e., greater loneliness).
Affect (valence) from Self-Assessment Manikin	11 weeks	Mean valence score during negatively valenced social pictures. The Self-Assessment Manikin is a non-verbal pictorial assessment technique that directly measures a person's affect in response to positive, negative, and neutrally valenced pictures. Affect valence is measured on a 9-point scale: 1 (very unpleasant) - 9 (very pleasant).
Stroop Task	11 weeks	Difference in response time (ms) to judgments of semantic meaning (positive or negative) of spoken, socially-relevant words between congruent (e.g., negative social word-negative vocal tone) versus incongruent (e.g., positive social word-negative vocal tone) trials, indicating cognitive interference.
Dot probe task	11 weeks	Difference in response times (in milliseconds) to dots appearing in the location of a previously shown negative versus the neutral face.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Flanker Task	11 weeks	During the trials, a decision needs to be made about whether the orientation of a central stimulus is congruent or incongruent with a set of flanking arrows. Selective attention/cognitive inhibition is indicated by difference between response time (millisecond) on the congruent and incongruent conditions.
Set-Shifting Task	11 weeks	During each trial, the participant is required to match a stimulus on the top of the screen to one of two stimuli in the lower corners of the screen. In task-homogeneous blocks, the examinee performs either Task A (e.g., classifying shapes) or Task B (e.g., classifying colors). In task-heterogeneous blocks, the examinee alternates between the two tasks pseudo-randomly. Cognitive flexibility (or capacity for task switching) is derived as the difference in response time (milleseconds) between homogeneous and heterogenous blocks.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Rochester; 🇺🇸 Rochester, New York, United States