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Completed

NCT Number: NCT02782611

Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement

Over the past several decades, a new science of subjective well-being has produced insights into the factors that make people happy-from cultivating strong relationships to pursuing the right goals. Drawing on these empirical findings, the investigators created a comprehensive 12-week intervention program, ENHANCE: Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement. The investigators multimodal program is designed to teach people essential skills in order to produce sustainable changes in behavior and, as a result, long-lasting increases in happiness. To test the effectiveness of ENHANCE, the investigators designed a six-month randomized clinical trial. Participants will be assigned to an active treatment group or a waiting group control. They will complete baseline assessments, and follow-up assessment at three and six months after the start of the intervention. These assessments will contain measures of subjective well-being and objective measures of health, as well as a variety of psychological mediators (e.g., psychological needs) and moderators (e.g. personality). The investigators will thus be able to explore not only whether ENHANCE works to improve well-being, but also why and how ENHANCE works.

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Key information

Conditions

Happiness Behavior Personal Satisfaction

Age range

25 year–75 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of British Columbia, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

Loading trial locations.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Participants ages 25 to 75

Exclusion criteria

  • Major Depression

Treatment and study plan

ENHANCE: Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement

Behavioral

ENHANCE is a skill-based intervention to teach people a wide variety of strategies that have been shown to boost happiness. Each session of ENHANCE follows a similar format targeted to address three central goals. First, in each session, participants will complete an active learning module designed to educate participants about one of the ten overarching topics featured in this program (e.g., goals, close relationships). Next, participants will engage in activities that put these principles into practice. Finally, this program is designed to encourage a skill-building mindset by helping participants develop habits to integrate these principles into maintained activity in their daily lives moving forward.

Primary outcomes

  1. Change from Baseline Satisfaction With Life

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Satisfaction With Life Scale

  2. Change from Baseline in Positive Affect

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE

  3. Change from Baseline in Negative Affect

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE

  4. Change from Baseline in Meaning in Life

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Meaning in Life Questionnaire

  5. Change from Baseline in Thriving

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving

Secondary outcomes

  1. Change from Baseline Positive and Negative Memories Generated by Participants

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    In this task, participants list as many positive (and then negative) life events and then as many negative life events as they can in three minutes. Relative quantities of positive to negative life events that are listed demonstrate accessibility of positive and negative memories, which is an indicator of Subjective Well-Being.

  2. Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Behaviors

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Peers will be asked to evaluate the participant on how frequently they engaged in a series of affect-related displays over the past week: smiling, laughing,

  3. Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Satisfaction With Life

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

  4. Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Affect

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

  5. Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Affect

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

  6. Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Behaviors

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Peers will be asked to evaluate the participant on how frequently they engaged in a series of affect-related displays over the past week: crying, frowning, complaining, and criticizing.

  7. Change from Baseline Healthy Behaviors

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

  8. Change from Baseline Perceived Stress

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

  9. Change from Baseline Depression

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Patient Health Questionnaire-9

  10. Change from Baseline Self-Esteem

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

  11. Change from Baseline Psychological Need Satisfaction: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

    Need Satisfaction Scale

  12. Change from Baseline Body Mass Index: BMI

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

  13. Change from Baseline Blood Pressure

    Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Virginia

Other

Collaborators

  • University of British Columbia

Registry information

Acronym: ENHANCE

Important dates

Study start
2016
Primary completion
2017
Study completion
2017
First posted
May 25, 2016
Registry last updated
Apr 13, 2018

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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