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OpenTrials
Completed

NCT Number: NCT05031559

Episodic Future Thinking and Compassion

During the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic, public health departments have issued guidelines to limit viral transmission. In this environment, people will feel urges to engage in activities that violate these guidelines, but research on guideline adherence has been reliant on surveys asking people to self-report their typical behaviour, which may fail to capture these urges as they unfold. Guideline adherence could be improved through behaviour change interventions, but considering the wide range of behaviours that COVID-19 guidelines prescribe, there are few methods that allow observing changes of aggregate guideline adherence in the 'wild'. In order to administer interventions and to obtain contemporaneous data on a wide range of behaviours, the researchers use ecological momentary assessment. In this preregistered parallel randomised trial, 95 participants aged 18-65 from the United Kingdom were assigned to three conditions using blinded block randomisation, and engage in episodic future thinking (n = 33), compassion exercises (n = 31), or a sham procedure (n = 31) and report regularly on the intensity of their occurrent urges (min. 1, max. 10) and their ability to control them. The researchers investigate whether state impulsivity and vaccine attitudes predict guideline adherence, while assessing through which mechanism these predictors affect behaviour.

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Key information

Conditions

Compliant Behavior Behavior Cooperative Behavior Impulsive Behavior Self-Control Social Behavior

Age range

18 year–65 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Prolific online participant recruitment platform

Oxford, United Kingdom

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

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

Inclusion criteria

  • Resides in the United Kingdom
  • Fluent in English
  • Must pass attention check in eligibility survey

Exclusion criteria

  • Less than 50% compliance with ecological momentary assessment surveys

Treatment and study plan

Episodic Future Thinking

Behavioral

Participants are invited to imagine themselves in a positive situation after COVID-19 public health restrictions and guidelines are lifted. They are then reminded that their actions are able to change how soon this future can be achieved.

Compassion Training

Behavioral

Participants are invited to imagine themselves in someone else's situation, who is in a bad situation due to COVID-19 (e.g., ER nurse, family of someone in ICU). They are then reminded that their decisions have an impact on the occurrence of these situations.

Sham

Behavioral

Participants are invited to reflect on some COVID-19 related news, and reminded that their actions have bearing on the COVID-19 situation.

Primary outcomes

  1. Average strength of urges in ecological momentary assessment surveys

    Time frame: Multiple times per day, for one week.

    Throughout each day, participants would receive 5 ecological momentary assessment surveys that were available for 1 hour. In randomised order, they were asked whether since the last survey they had felt an urge to not wash their hands, not cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, not socially distance (e.g. to hug, shake hands), not leave details for contact tracing, or whether they had felt an urge to leave their house, touch their face, or avoid getting tested when it would have been better to do the opposite - from a COVID-19 standpoint. Participants responded using a slider [0,10], where 0 indicated no urge, 1 indicated a very weak urge, and 10 indicated a very strong urge.

  2. Average probability of controlling urges in ecological momentary assessment surveys

    Time frame: Multiple times per day, for one week.

    Throughout each day, participants would receive 5 ecological momentary assessment surveys that were available for 1 hour. In randomised order, they were asked whether since the last survey they had felt an urge to not wash their hands, not cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, not socially distance (e.g. to hug, shake hands), not leave details for contact tracing, or whether they had felt an urge to leave their house, touch their face, or avoid getting tested when it would have been better to do the opposite - from a COVID-19 standpoint. Participants responded using a slider [0,10], where 0 indicated no urge, 1 indicated a very weak urge, and 10 indicated a very strong urge. Following that urge, participants are asked whether they gave in to that urge.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Average number of resisted urges

    Time frame: Multiple times per day, for one week.

    Throughout each day, participants would receive 5 ecological momentary assessment surveys that were available for 1 hour. In randomised order, they were asked whether since the last survey they had felt an urge to not wash their hands, not cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, not socially distance (e.g. to hug, shake hands), not leave details for contact tracing, or whether they had felt an urge to leave their house, touch their face, or avoid getting tested when it would have been better to do the opposite - from a COVID-19 standpoint. Participants responded using a slider [0,10], where 0 indicated no urge, 1 indicated a very weak urge, and 10 indicated a very strong urge. Following that urge, participants are asked whether they tried to resist that urge.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Monash University

Other

Collaborators

  • Australian Research Council
  • Martin & Loreto Hosking's Three Springs Foundation

Registry information

Official study title

Episodic Future Thinking and Compassion Reduce Public Health Guideline Noncompliance Urges: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Important dates

Study start
2021
Primary completion
2021
Study completion
2021
First posted
Sep 2, 2021
Registry last updated
Sep 2, 2021

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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