NCT04945902

International Students Intervention

A Psychosocial Intervention to Protect Purdue International Students

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 77 (actual)
• Sponsor: Purdue University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The proposed project aims to provide international students on F-1, J-1, or M-1 visas at Purdue additional culturally-relevant support by implementing and testing a psychosocial intervention. The intervention was designed based on the results of a recently published research study (Bhojwani et al., 2020) about international student concerns and needs in the time of COVID-19. This intervention is designed to test the effectiveness of a strengths-based intervention that targets the particular needs of international students during COVID. The intervention was designed based on evidence-based Cognitive-Behavioral and Systemic Therapy (Jafar et. al, 2016; Saravanan et. al., 2017) approaches to addressing stress and anxiety in a culturally-relevant manner and to decrease social isolation.

Conditions

• Social Isolation

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Synchronous Intervention	Weekly one-hour support groups. These support groups will meet virtually using a restricted WebEx channel and will be recorded. In this support group, students will discuss the weekly activities and build connection and support with each other. This group will be led by advanced doctoral students in counseling psychology and overseen by a counseling psychology faculty member, who is also a licensed psychologist.
BEHAVIORAL	Asynchronous Intervention	The asynchronous intervention will provide access to information and resources for mental health support via Brightspace. The intervention will be six weeks long and each week will have a topic. The weekly topics include: (1) identifying feelings; (2) biology of emotions; (3) mindfulness; (4) recognizing and responding to stress; (5) mental health stigma; and (6) self-care/self-advocacy. Each week, you will be required to complete four types of activities: education, reflective exercises, an activity, and a short assessment. All of these resources will be provided on Brightspace to be completed on your own time but the activities must be completed during the week they are assigned. You will not have to interact with other international students if you are in the asynchronous intervention group.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-01-18
• Primary completion: 2021-05-18
• Completion: 2021-05-18
• First posted: 2021-06-30
• Last updated: 2021-06-30

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States