Clinical trial NCT04596345: Psychological Distress in Emerging Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study
Official title: Psychological Distress in Emerging Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Psychological Distress
Keywords: Young Adult
Life Change Events
Students
Mental Health
Observational Study
Longitudinal Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires
Self Report
Lead sponsor: Universidad de las Americas - Quito
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-10-22
Enrollment: 1168
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 29
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: The population will be emerging adults from Ecuador students and non-students as one objective is to compare psychological distress variability between both populations.

Brief summary: Emerging adulthood (18-29 years) is a critical stage in lifespan development. During this stage, people experience instability: shifts from their families of origin, breakups of relationships and job changes are frequent before most young adults stabilize their lives and make more lasting decisions. This study seeks to understand the psychological distress of emerging adults in Quito, Ecuador and define how it varies over a year.

Detailed description: Emerging adulthood is often a period of some instability with relationship changes and often a series of job changes before life trajectories clarify and more lasting decisions are possible. These changes often produce distress and they might explain why most of the symptoms that impact the individual's mental health throughout their lives appear at this stage, although full-blown disorders are often only diagnosed subsequently. There are several studies that describe the prevalence of mental disorders in this age group, however, there are few studies that refer to how psychological distress changes during this phase of emotional, social, and financial instability. The few existent studies refer mostly to college student populations, with relative neglect of the non-student populations.

The objective of this study is to analyze the intraindividual changes in psychological distress of emerging adults over one year. These changes will be compared between those participants who are college students and those who are not. Sociodemographic data will be recorded in the first assessment and the last assessment, while psychological distress and health-related quality of life will be monitored bimonthly for seven assessment points in total. Everyday relevant events will be also recorded bimonthly for seven assessment points, and this information will be used as a time-varying covariate. An electronic survey will be used for data collection through formr system (https://formr.org/).

The results of this research will show if the distress changes significantly in the studied population for one year and it will be possible to identify some of the events and variables that are related to these changes. This knowledge might help to create interventions that are tailored to the needs of this population.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Competence to read and understand Spanish
* Living in Ecuador
* Being a student (for the student cohort)
* Not attending to a formal student program (for the non-student cohort)

Exclusion Criteria:

* None

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change on the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE)
timeFrame: One year (seven assessment points at two-month intervals)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: EuroQol five-dimensions - three-level (EQ-5D-3L)
timeFrame: One year (seven assessment points at two-month intervals)
measure: EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ VAS)
timeFrame: One year (seven assessment points at two-month intervals)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Quito
country: Ecuador
facility: Metropolitan District
Study officials:
References:
citation: Paz C, Osejo-Taco G, Evans C. Trajectories of success and/or distress: protocol for an observational cohort study investigating changing psychological distress among emerging Ecuadorian adults over a year. BMJ Open. 2021 Dec 20;11(12):e056361. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056361.