Clinical trial NCT06159075: Reducing Self-Stigma Among Individuals with History of Childhood Maltreatment: a Cross-Cultural Lens
Official title: Reducing Self-Stigma Among Individuals with History of Childhood Maltreatment: a Cross-Cultural Lens
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Stigma, Social
Child Abuse
Child Neglect
Help-Seeking Behavior
Lead sponsor: Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc.
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Columbia University
First posted: 2023-12-06
Enrollment: 964
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Individuals who report experiencing any kind of abuse during childhood report shame and self-blame, often leading to self-stigma and a reluctance to reveal their experiences and seek help. Such stigma may aggravate the mental health consequences of child maltreatment (CM).

The investigators hypothesize that:

1. The brief video-based intervention will have the immediate and repeated effect of reducing self-stigma among CM survivors compared with the control condition.
2. The brief video-based intervention will increase seeking treatment compared with the control condition.
3. The brief video-based intervention will show similar effects in reducing self-stigma across multiple countries.

Detailed description: Prior research suggests that social contact-based interventions are the most efficient way of reducing stigma. This study aims to address self-stigma and empower individuals who self-reported experiencing any kind of abuse during childhood and increase their openness to seeking help, if needed.

Four hundred participants with self-reported experience of any kind of childhood abuse will be recruited to participate in a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) testing the efficacy of the intervention. Participants will be randomized into one of two arms: 1) A 2-minute video intervention in which a CM survivor (presented by an actor) shares their personal CM experience and describes how they were able to overcome feelings of shame and self-blame to seek mental health care; or 2) A 2-minute control video using the same actor, but without a personal narrative of CM experience. Both videos will be preceded by and immediately followed by questionnaires assessing self-stigma and openness to seeking treatment. An additional assessment of emotional engagement will be added immediately following intervention delivery. Following the intervention, there will be a 30- day follow-up to examine potential long-term effects.

The results will be analyzed alongside results from parallel protocols being conducted by partner sites in other countries (Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Peru, India, Australia, Turkey, South Africa, and Israel). Each site will conduct the study under their own university's purview and with their own protocol, and only deidentified data will be shared for analysis.

All study procedures will be conducted remotely via CloudReseach and Mechanical Turk, which is a crowdsourcing platform. The study survey will be hosted by Qualtrics.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age 18-80
* US resident
* Individuals who endorse yes to one of the following items: physical aggression in family or household, emotional or verbal abuse in family or household, sexual abuse or inappropriate sexual experiences, negligence - physical or emotional, mental illness or substance abuse at home, incarceration of family member
* Fluent in English and able to give informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

- N/A

Primary outcomes:
measure: Self-Stigma Questionnaire - Post-Intervention
timeFrame: Immediately post-intervention
measure: Self-Stigma Questionnaire - Follow-Up
timeFrame: 30 days post-intervention
measure: Help Seeking Intentions - Post-Intervention
timeFrame: Immediately post-intervention
measure: Help Seeking Intentions - Follow-Up
timeFrame: 30 days post-intervention
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: New York State Psychiatric Institute
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: NYSPI and Columbia University
name: Yuval Neria, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: