Targeting Components of Distress Tolerance
NCT Number: NCT06570603
Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
Phases: NA
Conditions: Distress, Emotional
Interventions: BEHAVIORAL: Self-Efficacy|BEHAVIORAL: Willingness|BEHAVIORAL: Psychoeducation
Sponsor: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Sex: ALL
Age: ADULT, OLDER_ADULT
Enrollment: 240
Study Design: Allocation: RANDOMIZED|Intervention Model: PARALLEL|Masking: SINGLE (PARTICIPANT)|Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
Start Date: 2024-08
Completion Date: 2027-04

Summary:
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn which aspects of distress intolerance (i.e., difficulties withstanding upsetting emotional states) are the most important for improving effective emotion regulation and associated mental health symptoms.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

How are willingness to feel upset and self-efficacy for withstanding distress associated with different emotion regulation strategies used in daily life?

Does targeting willingness to feel upset and/or self-efficacy for withstanding distress help people use more effective emotion regulation strategies in daily life when they feel upset?

Are improvements in emotion regulation strategies in daily life associated with fewer symptoms of mental health problems over time?

Participants will:

Answer questions about their moods, willingness to feel upset, self-efficacy for withstanding distress and emotion regulation strategies for three weeks using a cell phone app

Undergo a willingness, self-efficacy, combined or psychoeducational control intervention in the lab

Be prompted to use the intervention skill via the cell phone app during the second week, after the intervention

Complete weekly reports of mental health symptoms

Primary Outcome Measures: Engagement behaviors, Emotion regulation strategies reflective of engagement; these are new items developed for this study and are not from an established scale. All items will be rated from 0 (not at all) to 6 (extremely). There will be 7 items assessing labeling ("I'm using emotion words to describe how I feel right now"), processing ("I'm reflecting on or writing about my feelings"), sharing ("I'm sharing how I feel with another person"), physical feeling ("I'm intentionally feeling my feelings in my body"), curiously considering ("I'm curiously considering how my feelings came about"), defusion ("I'm observing my feelings without getting 'stuck' in them"), and importance ("I'm trying to think about how this current situation maps on to what matters."), Assessed 5x/day via ecological momentary assessment|Disengagement behaviors, Emotion regulation strategies reflective of disengagement, some of which were modified from a momentary experiential avoidance measure (Hershenberg et al., 2017). All items will be rated from 0 (not at all) to 6 (extremely).Items will assess distraction ("Trying to distract myself from my feelings'), thought suppression ("Trying to push unwanted thoughts out of my mind."), discounting ("I'm telling myself I shouldn't be feeling the way I'm feeling"), expressive suppression ("I'm trying to control my feelings by not expressing them"), procrastination ("I'm intentionally putting of an unpleasant task until later"), denial ("I'm trying to 'turn off' the feelings that I don't want to feel"), and reduce importance ("Trying to think about the current situation as unimportant to me."), Assessed 5x/day via ecological momentary assessment|GAD-7, Symptoms of anxiety, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|PHQ-9, symptoms of depression, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|AUDIT, Alcohol misuse, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|Binge Eating Disorder Scale, binge eating symptoms, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|DSM Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure, symptoms of psychopathology, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup
Secondary Outcome Measures: Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), life satisfaction, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|Self-Compassion Scale - Short, self-criticism and self-compassion, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|State Loss of Interest and Pleasure Scale, anhedonia, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup|Rumination and Reflection Questionnaire, rumination and self-reflective tendencies, Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup