Clinical trial NCT03824353: Social Intelligence Training in Midlife
Official title: Does Resilience to Childhood Adversity Improve With Social Intelligence Training
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: PHASE2
Conditions: Social Skills
Social Interaction
Lead sponsor: Arizona State University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Aging (NIA)
First posted: 2019-01-31
Enrollment: 240
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 40
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Childhood adversity leads to social difficulties, chronic illness, and early mortality for many, but not all adults: Some are resilient. The investigators will test whether an on-line program focused on enhancing social relationships for people in mid-life can increase the odds that those with a history of a troubled childhood will not suffer a greater loss in mental and physical health than those without those histories. The investigators findings will bring the field significantly closer to the day when low cost interventions can be offered that work to strengthen the capacities of people to overcome the challenges that arise from adverse treatment early in life.

Detailed description: It is indisputable that health declines with age, and that the rate of decline is not the same for everyone. Many sources of accelerated risk of illness have been identified in prior research, and among the most reliable predictors of ill health are social stressors, including abusive social relations in childhood. Early life adversity may lead to poorer mental health and physical functioning in midlife through various pathways; among the most likely paths are social in origin, including troubled family relationships, heightened sensitivity to interpersonal stressors, and social isolation. Is it possible to interrupt this cause-effect pairing between early adversity and illness in later life? The investigators examine that question. Specifically, the investigators address whether the individual differences in risk attributable to childhood adversity are reversible through a social intelligence (SI) intervention for an established cohort of community residents who were part of a comprehensive study of biopsychosocial markers of resilience at Mid-Life. The investigators have three primary objectives in this research:

1. To examine whether an SI intervention can enhance the capacity for rewarding social relations, especially for individuals with a history of early life adversity.
2. To examine evidence for the investigator's hypothesis that intervention-related gains in the quality of social relationship will be responsible for the improvements in psychological, and physical functioning, and influence two bio-markers of health risk and resilience: interleukin 6 (IL-6) and DHEA-S.
3. To probe for individual differences in age, gender, history of abuse, personality, and genetic markers of risk that identify participants most responsive to the intervention.

To address these questions, an SI intervention will be delivered to a random-selected half of 220 middle-aged participants: Half with a history of child abuse and half who did not report abuse. The program is an on-line self-instructional series of videos with awareness exercises and behavioral practices designed to enhance fund of knowledge about relationships, increase skills, and enhance motivation to engage socially. In addition to charting social relations with daily diaries, the investigators will assess participants' social, psychological, and physical functioning at pre-test, post-test, three months, and six months following the intervention. The investigators hypothesize that the SI intervention will prompt lasting improvement in the ability to establish, maintain, and benefit from social relations in comparison to controls, which will lead to better psychological and physical functioning. The investigators will examine evidence for the hypothesis that the benefits of the intervention will be largest for individuals who have experienced greater early childhood adversity, as well as probe other individual differences in receptivity to the SI program that will inform future efforts to refine, test and disseminate this innovative program.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adult living in the US age 40 and older

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in social socio-emotion regulation.
timeFrame: Change will be assessed from baseline immeidately post intervention. This will be measured with four separate items that are on the same scale.
measure: Change in social intelligence
timeFrame: Change will be assessed from baseline immeidately post intervention, as well as at 3, and 6 month post intervention.
measure: Change in social support and strain.
timeFrame: Change will be assessed from baseline immeidately post intervention, as well as at 3, and 6 month post intervention.
measure: Change in well-being
timeFrame: Change will be assessed from baseline immeidately post intervention. A composite score will be created based on 16 items.
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
References:
citation: Castro SA, Infurna FJ, Lemery-Chalfant K, Waldron V, Zautra E. Can an online curriculum improve the daily socio-emotional lives of middle-aged adults exposed to childhood Trauma? Behav Res Ther. 2019 Jul;118:65-76. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2019.03.012. Epub 2019 Mar 24.