Students Rising Above: Offsetting the Health and Mental Health Costs of Resilience
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age13+
SponsorUniversity of California, Los Angeles
About this trial
Students who 'strive' to rise above significant stressors to achieve academic success are considered 'resilient'. However, youths' resilience in one domain (i.e. academic) can come at a cost in other domains including physical and mental health morbidities that are under-identified and under-treated. Previous research suggests that individuals from populations experiencing documented health disparities who exhibit a "striving persistent behavioral style" in the face of stress evince later health morbidities. Ironically, the same self-regulatory skills that promote academic achievement amid chronic stress can also result in physiological dysregulation that harms health and mental health. Self-regulatory processes that involve emotion suppression, experiential avoidance, and unmodulated perseverance can culminate in allostatic load which fuels health disparities and internalizing symptoms of depression and anxiety.
The proposed mechanistic trial will utilize mindfulness training to permit examination of questions about the causal role of emotion regulation strategies linked to the striving persistent behavioral style in driving mental health and health morbidities among individuals from populations experiencing documented health disparities. The proposed Project STRIVE (STudents RIsing aboVE) will identify students who are academically resilient in the face of stress and will offer a tailored mindfulness intervention targeting self-regulation processes as a putative mechanism to interrupt the links between the striving persistent behavioral style and negative health outcomes. Investigators propose a multisite randomized trial randomizing 504 high achieving Black, Latinx, or Asian America/Pacific Islander students in 18 schools to receive a mindfulness intervention or an attention control condition focused on study skills. The study will: (1) test the effects of the STRIVE intervention on putative self-regulation mechanisms (emotion suppression, experiential avoidance, and unmodulated perseverance) among identified students, (2) test the effects of the STRIVE intervention on health and mental health outcomes at 12-month post-treatment, including biomarkers of allostatic load (cortisol, blood pressure, body-mass-index, waist/hip/neck circumference), health complaints, and internalizing symptoms, and (3) examine the mechanistic model linking striving persistent behavioral style and health outcomes within the STRIVE trial.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Enrolled in 10th or 11th grade at a participating high school
Black, Latinx, Asian American/Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaskan Native
High achieving (e.g., GPA above 3.5 and/or in the top 20% of their grade, enrolled in advanced classes such as AP/IB/honors classes)
Disqualifiers
Intellectual Disability
Trial design
Design model
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
STRIVE
BehavioralThe STRIVE intervention will include all activities and BREATHE skill training components of L2B with content framed within the needs of high achieving college-bound students who can benefit from health promoting practices to offset the costs of resilience. The intervention will include twelve 60-minute group sessions, with two sessions on each of the six core themes. Each session will include an opening mindful movement, short didactic presentation of the topic or theme of that week, group activities that illustrate the theme, guided discussion about the activity, and in-session group mindfulness meditation practice.
Study Skills
BehavioralThe sessions will focus on goal setting (4 sessions), organization and time management (3 sessions), and study skills for reading comprehension, writing papers, note-taking, and test-taking (4 sessions). Parallel to the final L2B session, the last meeting will include activities to share and reflect on how students plan to incorporate and sustain new skills.
Treatment groups
504 Participants
are divided into 2 treatment groupsGroup A: STRIVEExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Group B: Study SkillsPlacebo comparator 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Change in Internalizing Symptoms over time
The Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS) is a set of three self-report scales designed to measure the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. The research team will assess a change in internalizing symptoms at different timepoints. For example, from Baseline to mid-assessment, mid-assessment to post-assessment, baseline to post-assessment, and baseline to 12-month follow up. The minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 21. Higher scores indicate greater severity of negative emotional symptoms.
Time frame
Collected at baseline, Mid-Assessment (Week 6), Post-Assessment (Week 13), and 12 month follow up2
Change in Physical Health Complaints over time on the PROMIS scale
Utilized Two-item Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement and Information System (PROMIS) global physical and mental health scale to measure participant self-reported health. The research team will assess a change in self-reported health at different timepoints. For example, from Baseline to mid-assessment, mid-assessment to post-assessment, baseline to post-assessment, and baseline to 12-month follow up. The overall score is the sum of the two items, the minimum score is 2 and the maximum score is 10. Higher scores reflect better self-reported health.
Time frame
Collected at baseline, Mid-Assessment (Week 6), Post-Assessment (Week 13), and 12 month follow up3
Change in Physical Health Complaints over time on the CSSI-8
Utilized the Children's Somatic Symptoms Inventory (CSSI-8) which measures the extent to which youth are bothered by various nonspecific somatic symptoms. The research team will assess a change in internalizing symptoms at different timepoints. For example, from Baseline to mid-assessment, mid-assessment to post-assessment, baseline to post-assessment, and baseline to 12-month follow up. The minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 32. Higher scores indicate greater somatic distress.
Time frame
Collected at baseline, Mid-Assessment (Week 6), Post-Assessment (Week 13), and 12 month follow up4
Change in Hair Cortisol over time
The research team will collect hair samples to measure hair cortisol (picograms per milligram). The research team will assess a change in hair cortisol at different timepoints. For example, from Baseline to post-assessment, post-assessment to 12-month follow up, and baseline to 12-month follow up.
Time frame
Collected at baseline, post-assessment (13 weeks), and 12 month follow upSponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
University of California, Los Angeles
Lead sponsor
Claremont McKenna College
Collaborator
Fuller Seminary
Collaborator
Stanford University
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov