Clinical Research Directory

Healing Hearts: A Mindfulness App for Parents Navigating Divorce or Separation

This study examines online programs for parents navigating divorce or separation. Researchers will study whether a self-guided mindfulness app called Healing Hearts, followed by a self-guided online parenting program called the electronic New Beginnings Program, is feasible and acceptable to parents and shows promising effects on parent and child wellbeing. Ninety-six parents who live in the United States, have a child aged 6 to 18 with a former partner, and report mild to moderate psychological distress will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: Healing Hearts followed by the parenting program, the parenting program alone, or a set of online educational resources. Participants complete online assessments before assignment, about seven weeks later, and about seven weeks after the second assessment. The study measures parent wellbeing, parenting, parent reports of child behavior, program use, and participant experiences. All participation takes place remotely.

Evaluating Knowledge Insight Tools (KIT) for Reducing Anxiety and Low Mood in UK Secondary School Students

Background and Study Aims: Secondary school students are reporting unprecedented levels of anxiety and mood difficulties. To ensure that the needs of all young people are met, there is a need to evaluate more accessible forms of support, such as psychological therapies offered in schools. The aim of this trial is to test a new form of school-based psychological therapy called Knowledge Insight Tools (KIT). KIT is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is known to be helpful for young people experiencing difficulties with anxiety and low mood. The investigators want to see whether offering KIT to secondary school students can reduce their anxiety and/or low mood, compared to a period of time when they did not receive any support. Who can participate? Children and young people aged 11-18 can participate if they are attending a secondary school in England or Scotland, are experiencing problems with low mood and/or anxiety that are disrupting their everyday lives and are not mainly the result of external factors, and are actively seeking support. Children and young people cannot participate if they pose a significant risk to themselves and/or others, if their primary difficulties are not related to anxiety and/or low mood, if they have significant special educational needs or learning difficulties, and are younger than 16 years and for whom it would pose significant issues if their parents/carers were informed of their involvement with Place2Be services. What does the study involve? The study starts with a waiting period, where each young person will not receive any support for 3-8 weeks, except for a weekly check-in with a trained professional. This is meant to provide a stable measurement of young people's mental health before KIT is introduced. The length of the waiting period for each young person is chosen at random by a computer program. This helps mix up the influence of things other than KIT that could impact young people's mental health, such as differences in the natural (and sometimes healing) passage of time. Young people will then be offered 10 sessions of KIT, where they will learn about the ways in which unhelpful thoughts and behaviours can inadvertently make them feel low or anxious. They will also be asked to practice ways of testing their unhelpful thoughts and changing their behaviours outside of sessions, and the investigators will review how this affects their mood and well-being over the course of treatment. What are the possible benefits and risks of participating? The main benefit of participating is that young people will be contributing to science, which will help young people struggling with anxiety and mood problems in future be offered forms of school-based psychological therapy that have been rigorously tested. The main risk is that young people might wait longer to start KIT than had they not participated in the study. Young people will still receive KIT if they refuse to participate or withdraw their participation, which they can do at any time. Where is the study run from? The study is run from secondary schools in the UK and is being conducted by the Evidence-Based Practice Unit (a research group and collaboration between University College London and the Anna Freud) and researchers and school-based practitioners from Place2Be. When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for? The study started on 01/08/2022 with the recruitment of the first student. The study is expected to run until September 2024. There are plans to extend the study until September 2025 if another wave of recruitment is needed. Who is funding the study? The study is funded by Place2Be and Anna Freud, both UK-based charities. Who is the main contact? The main contact and principle investigator for the trial is Professor Jessica Deighton (j.deighton@ucl.ac.uk).

Psychological Intervention for Child Mental Health Based on Parental Reflective Functioning to Enhance Positive Parenting

In this study we aim to verify the effectiveness of a psychological intervention for preschool children, 3 to 6 years of age, with psychological problems or disorders, arising from adversity, Skills4Parenting+. Skills4Parenting+, with 6 to 8 weekly sessions, aims to treat the child's psychological problems or disorders, based on parental reflective functioning, to activate and develop parents' positive parenting skills, in response to situations of adversity. To assess the effectiveness, we plan to conduct an a simple two-arm RCT study, where children are randomly allocated to an immediate intervention group (IIG) or a delayed intervention group (DIG). The IIG will be assessed at 3 time-points: Time 0 (pre-test: before the 1st session); Time 1 (post-test: after the last session) and Time 2 (follow-up: 8 weeks after the last session). The DIG will be assessed at 4 time-points: Time 0 (pre-test 1: before the 1st session); Time 0+ (pre-test 2: 8 weeks after the 1st session); Time 1 (post-test: after the last session) and Time 2 (follow up: 8 weeks after the last session). A time period of 8 weeks will be maintained between each time point. In this study, we expect the (1) psychological intervention to significantly diminish the child's psychological problems or disorders (from pretest to posttest); (2) parental reflective functioning will mediate the effect of the psychological intervention on child's psychological problems or disorders; (3) the children from IIG will demonstrate a significant improvement in their mental health, in comparison to the children from the DIG; and (4) for the effects of the psychological intervention (i.e., improvement in the child's mental health) to be maintained in the medium-term (from posttest to follow-up).

Promoting Resilience in Youth Through Mindfulness mEditation

The aim of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) is to assess whether mindfulness training reduces early stage internalizing problems such as anxiety, worrying, and low mood in help-seeking youth. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) mindfulness + care-as-usual (CAU) or 2) CAU-only. The mindfulness program was developed specifically for youth with internalizing problems. The 8-week training program consists of weekly 2-hour sessions, with mindfulness, yoga, and mindful active movement in each session. In addition, participants are invited to practice at home in between sessions for around 20 minutes per day. Data will be collected at baseline (T0), end-of-treatment (T1) (or 2-3 months after baseline for the CAU-only group), and at 2 months follow-up (T2) and 6 months follow-up (T3). Measurements will include: * Self-report questionnaires (T0, T1, T2, T3) * Psychiatric diagnostic interview (T0, T3) * MRI scans (T0, T1) * Cognitive tasks (T0, T1) The primary outcome parameter is the total number of internalizing problems measured with the Adult Self Report (ASR) at end-of-treatment. The effect of mindfulness training (mindfulness + CAU vs. CAU-only) on internalizing problems at T1 will be assessed using a linear-mixed effects model.