The Interactive Media and Gender-related Stressors and Strengths Study
Trial statusNot yet recruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18-25
SponsorBoston University
About this trial
Emerging adulthood is a key developmental period with unique challenges, including elevated risk of substance use (including risky drinking, cigarette use, and illicit drug use), eating disorder symptoms, and severe psychological distress and suicidal ideation. This critical developmental period also offers an important opportunity for interventions to prevent adverse mental health outcomes in adulthood, particularly those related to substance use and disordered eating behaviors.
Research suggests several relevant potential targets for preventive interventions in this age group. Online media, especially social media (e.g., Instagram), are used by 90% of U.S. young adults, offering unprecedented access to informational and social support for young adults. Yet online media also provide new channels for harmful exposure to stigma (e.g., online harassment) and sociocultural appearance ideals for young adults. Such exposures may cause or exacerbate substance use and adverse mental health outcomes.
Existing brief interventions that improve media literacy (i.e., the ability to critically analyze and interpret media) and increase resistance to harmful sociocultural appearance ideals offer promise in supporting young adults to reduce body dissatisfaction and stress and coping behaviors (like substance use and disordered eating behaviors). However, these interventions have not previously accounted for the core role of body dissatisfaction or unique dimensions of social media literacy in young adults' health. Further, existing preventive interventions in this area have primarily been developed and tested with a focus on cisgender young people. To date, there are no gender-inclusive evidence-based interventions to address both social media-based stressors (e.g., harassment, appearance ideals) and resilience factors (e.g., social support) for young adults.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Reside in United States
Have access to computer, tablet, or mobile device with internet access
Have used any social media platform in the past week
Disqualifiers
Unable to understand and read English
Trial design
Design model
Single group
Treatments tested in this trial
digital web based toolkit
Other interventionA brief, web-based psychoeducational intervention with 5 self-guided activities that build social media literacy skills which takes 25-45 minutes to complete.
Treatment groups
120 Participants
are divided into 1 treatment groupGroup A: IMAGES Project Digital ToolkitExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Digital toolkit feasibility
A validated scale by Weiner et al., 2017 will be used to assess feasibility. It has 4 items assessing dimensions of feasibility (e.g., "The digital toolkit seems like a good match"), with response options ranging from Completely agree (1) to Completely disagree (5). Scores can range from 4 to 20 and lower scores suggest greater feasibility.
Time frame
24-48 hours after web-based intervention2
Digital toolkit acceptability
A validated scale by Weiner et al., 2017 will be used to assess acceptability. It has 4 items assessing perceived acceptability of the digital toolkit (e.g., "The digital toolkit was appealing to me"), with response options ranging from Completely agree (1) to Completely disagree (5). Scores can range from 4 to 20 and lower scores suggest greater acceptability.
Time frame
24-48 hours after web-based intervention3
Digital toolkit appropriateness
2 relevant items from a Intervention Appropriateness Measure (Weiner et al., 2017) e.g., ("The digital toolkit seems easy to use"). Response options range from Completely agree (1) to Completely disagree (5). Scores can range from 2 to 10 and lower scores suggest greater appropriateness.
Time frame
24-48 hours after web-based intervention4
Digital toolkit satisfaction
The Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (Larson, 1979) which is a validated 8-item scale will be used to assess . Response options are tailored to specific items, with higher scores always indicating greater satisfaction, for example: i. How would you rate the quality of the digital toolkit? Response options: Poor (1) to Excellent (5) ii. If you were to seek help again, would you come back to the toolkit? Response options: No, definitely not (1) to Yes, definitely (4) iii. To what extent has the toolkit met your needs? Response options: Almost all of my needs have been met (4) to None of my needs have been met (1) iv. How satisfied are you with the amount of information you received in the toolkit? Response options: Quite dissatisfied (1) to Very satisfied (4) v. Has the toolkit helped you to deal more effectively with your problems? Response options: Yes, it helped a great deal (4) to No, it seemed to make things worse (1)
Time frame
24-48 hours after web-based intervention, 3-months after web-based interventionOther outcomes
1
Social media literacy skills
The Perceived Social Media Literacy Scale (Tandoc et al., 2021), a validated 8-item scale will be used to assess social media literacy which incudes technical competence, informational awareness, and privacy and algorithmic awareness. there are 5 response options- from Strongly disagree (1) to Strongly agree (5). Scores can range from 8 yo 40 and higher scores are correlated with greater social media literacy skills.
Time frame
baseline, 24-48 hours after web-based intervention, 3-months after web-based intervention2
Social media use intensity
3-item measure adapted from Boer (2022). Response options will range from Never or less than once a week (0) to More than 40 times per week (7). Higher scores are correlated with greater intensity of social media use.
Time frame
baseline, 3-months after web-based intervention3
Appearance ideal internalization
Internalization-General 5-items subscale of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Scale-3 (SATAQ-3; Thompson et al., 2004); 5-item subscale adapted for social media per Gordon et al. (2020). Response options ranging from Definitely disagree (1) to Definitely agree (5).
Time frame
baseline, 24-48 hours after web-based intervention, 3-months after web-based intervention4
Alcohol use
Alcohol use will be assessed with the US Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), which is a validated 3-item measure with questions about past year frequency of drinks consumed, number of drinks consumed on an average day of drinking, and how often the respondent had more than five drinks on one occasion. Response options range from Never (0) to Daily (6), 1 drink (1) to 10 or more drinks (7), and Never (0) to Daily (6), respectively. Higher scores are correlated with more alcohol use.
Time frame
baseline, 3-months after web-based interventionSponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Boston University
Lead sponsor
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov
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