Clinical trial NCT04408651: Low Intensity Internet Therapy for Chronic Illness (@LIIT.CI)
Official title: Low Intensity Internet Therapy for Chronic Illness (@LIIT.CI): Testing the Efficacy of ACT and CFT Interventions
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Chronic Medical Conditions
Lead sponsor: University of Coimbra
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-05-29
Enrollment: 54
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Chronic illness (CI) presents a significant and negative effect on quality of life and mental health. Further, emotion regulation has been considered of particular importance on the determination of chronic patients' well-being. Evidence suggests that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an effective approach to improve psychological health in patients with CI. Further, there is some, although limited, evidence, that self-compassion training may be also useful in this context, and the inclusion of self-compassion elements in ACT interventions has even been the focus of attention by recent studies. Nevertheless, no study yet has compared the efficacy of these two types of intervention in CI. This is the aim of the present project - to analyse, in a low intensity eHealth intervention context, whether ACT or Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) present superiority over the other in improving mental health and illness-related outcomes in CI.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age between 18 and 65
* Previous diagnosis of a physical chronic medical condition
* Easy access to internet and to a computer

Exclusion Criteria:

* Receiving psychological intervention
* Diagnosis of a severe psychiatric disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) or cognitive impairment.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales; HADS)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Illness shame (Chronic Illness Shame Scale; CISS)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
measure: Psychological Flexibility (Comprehensive assessment of ACT processes; CompACT)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
measure: Self-compassion (Self-compassion scale; SCS)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
measure: Self-criticism (Self-compassion scale; SCS)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
measure: Cognitive fusion (Cognitive Fusion Scale; CFQ-7)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
Other outcomes:
measure: Fear of contracting COVID-19 (Fear of contracting COVID-19 scale; FCCS)
timeFrame: Changes in results from: immediately pre-intervention and immediately post-intervention assessments
Locations:
city: Coimbra
country: Portugal
facility: Inês Trindade
Study officials:
References: