New in Town-Internet Intervention for Migrants: a Randomized Controlled Trial

The number of migrants worldwide is growing rapidly over the past years. Migration often requires creating a whole new social network. There is something that can help migrants to do it-their beliefs. Social self-efficacy is confidence in ability to engage in social interactional tasks necessary to initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships. These beliefs are positively related to social adjustment and negatively related to acculturative stress, depression, and loneliness. Therefore, social self-efficacy may be potentially beneficial for the psychological adjustment of migrants helping them establish new connections in the social environment. Based on this observation the investigators have created New in Town, an internet intervention. Exercises in the intervention are based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and relate to four sources of self-efficacy beliefs-mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasions, and emotional and physiological states.

The effectiveness of New in Town intervention will be tested in a two-arm randomized controlled trial with waitlist control group. Primary outcome is social self-efficacy, and secondary outcomes include loneliness, perceived social support, and satisfaction with life. Other measure of interest is system usability. Participants will be assessed at pre-test (T1), 3-week post-tests (T2), as well as 8-week follow-up (T3). The investigators aim to analyze the effect size of the intervention and between-groups comparisons at post-test and follow-up.

This study will provide insights into the effectiveness of an internet intervention in increasing social self-efficacy, perceived social support and satisfaction with life, and reducing loneliness.