NCT04458181

Journaling and Addiction Recovery: Piloting "Positive Recovery Journaling"

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 81 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Minnesota · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The main objective of this study is to pilot test the Positive Peer Journaling (PPJ) \[later renamed "Positive Recovery Journaling" (PRJ)\] intervention and its feasibility and acceptability. A second objective is to compare individuals assigned to PPJ to individuals in a treatment as usual control group.

Detailed description

Many spiritual and religious traditions involve the practice of personal inventory and self-examination. These practices involve conducting a review of the day, spirituality, gratitude, and striving for self-knowledge and self-improvement. The 10th step of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) recommends that members conduct such a daily inventory. While this practice may benefit AA members, not everyone seeking addiction recovery joins AA. Even for those who do, it can take time to reach step 10 and begin deriving benefits from it. The study PI, Dr. Amy Krentzman, developed Positive Recovery Journaling (PRJ, formerly "positive peer journaling") as a simple 10-minute daily practice which reviews the past 24 hours on the left side of a journal page and plans the upcoming 24 hours on the right side of a journal page. The prompts for the left and right sides of the PRJ page are based on principles from positive psychology and behavioral activation. The main objective of this study is to pilot test the PRJ intervention and to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and logistics of treatment delivery. A second objective is to observe whether PRJ is associated with improvement in satisfaction with life, happiness with recovery, and commitment to sobriety

Conditions

• Addiction

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Positive Peer Journaling (PPJ)	PPJ is a journaling practice to support addiction recovery. PPJ encourages past 24 hour review and upcoming 24 hour planning to improve subjective wellbeing in recovery and reduce relapse. PPJ uses journals with column headings under which individuals make bullet-pointed lists. On the left hand page, past 24 hours is recalled, itemizing "good" and "bad" things that happened and things for which one is grateful. Good wishes for others are also expressed on this page. On the right hand page, values-based activities for the upcoming 24 hours are planned via headings representing valued life domains such as "recovery," "work/school," "spirituality," "home and household," and "health."

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-07-07
• Primary completion: 2021-11-01
• Completion: 2021-11-01
• First posted: 2020-07-07
• Last updated: 2024-06-20
• Results posted: 2024-06-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States