Clinical trial NCT03720600: Forms of Racial Discrimination Study
Official title: Examination of a Mindfulness- and Acceptance-Based Health Promotion Program on Momentary Experiences of Racism and Mental Health Outcomes
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Psychological Distress
Keywords: mindfulness
acceptance
racism
Lead sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Boston
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
First posted: 2018-10-25
Enrollment: 76
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The project aims to evaluate a brief intervention for coping with racism-related experiences for people of color and examine momentary factors that may buffer the negative mental health impact of racism.

Detailed description: This study focuses on the unique experiences of people of color (e.g., Asian American, Black/African American, Latinx, Native, Multiracial), ways they manage coping with race-related stress, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of a brief, one-hour intervention focused on coping with racism. First, the study will evaluate the acceptability and impact of a brief, single-session, 1-hour intervention aimed at addressing strategies for coping with racism compared to a waitlist-control condition. The intervention will integrate culturally-adapted approaches for enhancing compassionate awareness, emotional acceptance, valued actions, and coping flexibility (CAAVAF). The study will also evaluate whether the brief CAAVAF program will be associated with increased use of CAAVAF strategies (compassionate awareness, emotional acceptance, valued action, and coping flexibility) in response to racial discrimination over time and whether the brief CAAVAF program improves mental health outcomes at the two-week follow-up. Second, the study aims to evaluate the impact of CAAVAF strategies on mental health outcomes in response to momentary reports of coping with discrimination and from pre- to two-week follow-up.

All participants will be asked to complete an online screening questionnaire, which will include informed consent, demographic questionnaires, past experiences of discrimination, and trait measures of coping. Participants will be randomized into a.) a CAAVAF program, b.) a waitlist control condition with EMA, or c.) a control condition without the CAAVAF program or EMA. Participants in the CAAVAF condition will watch a scripted CAAVAF psychoeducation video during an initial laboratory session; in contrast, participants in the waitlist control condition will watch the video in a second session (after two weeks of ecological momentary assessment). Participants in both the CAAVAF program and waitlist control condition will be given instructions on using an EMA cellphone application during the initial session for repeated momentary assessments. Following this session, participants in the EMA conditions will monitor their experiences of discrimination over two weeks, and report their mood and strategies used. Participants will then return to the lab and complete a final battery of questionnaires and a qualitative exit-interview. Participants in the control condition will only complete pre questionnaires and questionnaires at a two-week follow-up.Study findings will contribute to the existing literature by evaluating whether CAAVAF strategies are effective buffers against racism-related mental health outcomes, and whether our CAAVAF and EMA program facilitates the use of these strategies.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Self-identifies as a person of color (not white, European American)
* self-reported distress from racial microaggressions (score of 24 or higher on the Racial Microaggressions Scale; this score is 1 SD deviation below the mean in an unpublished dataset from a study conducted at the same institution)

Exclusion Criteria:

* Has lived in the U.S. for less than 5 years
* Not fluent in English
* Identifies as White, European American

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale scores
timeFrame: Baseline and two weeks later
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Momentary changes in Positive And Negative Affect Scale
timeFrame: four times a day for two weeks
measure: Quantitative measure of intervention helpfulness
timeFrame: Two weeks after baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: University of Massachusetts Boston
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Massachusetts, Boston
name: Jennifer H. Martinez, M.A.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: