Skip to main content
OpenTrials
Recruiting

NCT Number: NCT06570603

Targeting Components of Distress Tolerance

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

Recruiting

Interested in participating?

Request Info

Key information

Conditions

Distress, Emotional

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of Arkansas - Fayetteville

Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701, United States

Location status: Recruiting

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

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

Inclusion criteria

  • Fluent in English
  • Uses Android or iPhone smartphone
  • Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) scores of 42 and higher
  • Distress Intolerance Index (DII) scores of 3 or higher

Exclusion criteria

  • Work or School that does not allow consistent access to phone (or is unsafe)
  • No internet access for completing follow-up surveys

Treatment and study plan

Self-Efficacy

Behavioral

Brief skills based psychotherapy session to increase perceived self-efficacy for withstanding distress, giving participants increased beliefs that they *can* do it.

Willingness

Behavioral

Brief skills based psychotherapy session to increase perceived willingness to engage with distress for withstanding distress, giving participants increased motivation to try.

Psychoeducation

Behavioral

Psychoeducation about the components and functions of emotion.

Primary outcomes

  1. Engagement behaviors

    Time frame: Assessed 5x/day via ecological momentary assessment

    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.")

  2. Disengagement behaviors

    Time frame: Assessed 5x/day via ecological momentary assessment

    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.")

  3. GAD-7

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    Symptoms of anxiety

  4. PHQ-9

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    symptoms of depression

  5. AUDIT

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    Alcohol misuse

  6. Binge Eating Disorder Scale

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    binge eating symptoms

  7. DSM Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    symptoms of psychopathology

Secondary outcomes

  1. Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    life satisfaction

  2. Self-Compassion Scale - Short

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    self-criticism and self-compassion

  3. State Loss of Interest and Pleasure Scale

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    anhedonia

  4. Rumination and Reflection Questionnaire

    Time frame: Baseline, weekly for three weeks and then after one month followup

    rumination and self-reflective tendencies

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Jennifer C Veilleux, PhD

CONTACT

[email protected]

479-575-5329

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Other

Registry information

Important dates

Study start
2024
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2027
First posted
Aug 26, 2024
Registry last updated
Jul 10, 2025

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.

Related clinical trials

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.