In this study the investigators plan to recruit 70 patients reporting high levels of stress to test the impact of Positive Affect Journaling. Patients randomized to use the online intervention will be asked to journal about one of seven topics, several days each week, for three months. The topics (e.g., "What went well") are designed to help the individual focus on some positive aspect of their life or themselves over the past day. Each topic is based on prompts shown to be effective in studies of up to one week in duration. In the summer of 2012, our research team pilot tested each prompt with 20 patients with high levels of anxiety, which led to important changes to the prompts, to increase their potential impact. The main aim is to understand the impact of Positive Affect Journaling on psychological distress, as measured by the National Health Interview Survey.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
70
Penn State Hershey Medical Center
Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States
National Health Interview Survey
The NHIS measures perceived levels of stress over the past 12 months.
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Brief Resilience Scale
The BRS is a 6-item self-report measure of perceived resilience, including items such as "It does not take me long to recover from a stressful event" The BRS has high levels of internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha ranging from .80-.91
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Perceived Stress Scale
The PSS consists of 10 items that assess perceived stress. The items are scored on a 4-point scale (45). The measure demonstrates strong internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of .88
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Satisfaction with Life scale
The SWL is a five-item scale that assesses overall life satisfaction. The SWL has a 2-month test-retest reliability of 0.82 and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.87
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Social Provisions Scale
The SPS assesses the extent to which one perceives their social relationships to be supportive. This 24-item measure has a Cronbach's alpha of 0.91
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Healthy Days score
Created by the Centers for Disease Control, this measure assesses the number of days of poor mental health, physical health, poor sleep and other symptoms, as well as overall health
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Positive and Negative Affect Schedule score
The 20-item PANAS consists of two subscales, in which respondents indicate the extent to which they felt specific positive and negative emotions over a specific time frame. Internal consistencies are high (Crohnbach's alpha = 0.85-0.88)
Time frame: 3 month follow up
Cancer Quality of Life
The EORTC QLQ-C30 is a questionnaire developed to assess the quality of life of cancer patients.
Time frame: 3 month follow up
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