Clinical Research Directory

Resilient Students Training (ReST) : A Pilot RCT

Resilience is the ability to survive and thrive despite significant adversity. Trials of resilience-promoting interventions for university students have shown significant improvements in students' resilience and reductions in depressive and stress symptoms. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine the feasibility of Resilient Student Training Intervention (ReST) to enhance resilience and reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in university students with at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) in Hong Kong. The study will be conducted in two phases. Phase 1 is a co-designing approach with local university students to discover, define, develop, and deliver the ReST intervention based on the Double Diamond model (Design Council, 2015). In Phase 2, eligible participants will be randomly allocated to either receive the ReST intervention or a waitlist control group. In the intervention group, participants will receive one 60-minute individual session and two 90-minute group-based sessions. Our main objectives in this study are to answer the following research questions: 1. Can an effective Resilience Student Training Intervention (ReST) be used to improve resilience among undergraduate students with adverse childhood experiences and mental distress? 2. What proportion of eligible individuals participate, engage, and complete the interventions as part of the trial? 3. What proportion of eligible individuals participate in, engage with, and complete research assessments, and what data quality and completion rates can therefore be obtained? 4. Is the ReST intervention safe and acceptable from the participants' perspectives? 5. What sample size is required for a definitive trial?

Psychoeducation Program for Parents of Children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Having and caring for a child with disabilities brings emotional, social and economic difficulties for many families. Families may experience many physiological and psychological problems due to the stress and anxiety they experience. In addition, it is seen that families with children with disabilities give up their existing roles, reduce their participation in social activities, and reach stagnation in their social lives. Mothers are affected psychologically more than fathers and feel lonely. It is stated that mothers believe that they cannot afford everything in the face of the responsibilities they carry and accordingly, they experience emotional and psychological problems such as stress, anxiety, depression, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and tantrums. Living with a child with a disability causes family members to experience different emotions as mentioned above; families may frequently experience fear, anxiety, guilt, anger and depression. It is reported that mothers of children with DMD experience depression, anxiety about the future and uncertainty more than mothers of healthy children. Families of children with DMD reported that they felt tired and fatigued during the process of caring for the child and had difficulties in participating in social activities and allocating time for themselves. Most of these families stated that they needed psychological and social support. Therefore, it is important to address the psychiatric aspects of families with children with DMD during the disease process. Parental health contributes positively to the health and adaptation of the family in general. Examining the psychiatric symptoms caused by the problems experienced by families related to DMD and how they cope with this stress will be useful in evaluating and addressing these families. In addition, the social support that families with children with disabilities receive from their immediate environment and institutions is also an important issue. It has been reported that social support from relatives, friends, neighbors, organizations and communities increases the psychological resilience levels of families, they feel that they are not alone in the face of problems, and their anxiety levels decrease. In the literature, it is generally mentioned that when the culture of pediatric care is supportive and family-oriented, the care of the patient will undergo a change when transitioning from pediatric care to the adult period. However, studies evaluating the problems experienced by families in the care of patients with DMD, psychiatric symptoms, ways of coping with stress and perceived social support are insufficient. It is important to evaluate the problems experienced by parents in the families of children with DMD in developing skills to cope with the disease process and disease-related problems, and then to provide training in these areas. Because if parents, who are in the role of caregivers, are equipped with knowledge and skills in this context, they will provide better care and be more useful to their children with DMD. In line with this information, the aim of this study was to evaluate the problems experienced by parents of children with DMD, psychiatric symptoms, coping skills with stress and the level of social support they perceive and to implement a psychosocial support-based psychoeducation program related to these areas.

The Lasting Change Study

The study approach is to leverage the most cutting-edge techniques of multi-omics biology, wearable physiology, and digital real-time psychology profiling and using machine learning models to understand the mechanisms underlying the strategies and techniques that enable participants the power to initiate and maintain sustainable behavior change. Over the years, millions of people worldwide have attended immersive personal development seminars aiming to improve participants' health behaviors and wellness. Nevertheless, there's a scarcity of large-scale studies to assess their effects on behavior change and investigate their mechanism of action. A recent publication by the Science of Behavior Change Program (SOBC), launched by the National Institute of Health (NIH), recognized that: "science has not yet delivered a unified understanding of basic mechanisms of behavior change across a broad range of health-related behaviors, limiting progress in the development and translation of effective and efficacious behavioral intervention." As such, understanding the mechanisms underlying sustainable behavior change is key.