Abstract
BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has become a public health emergency of international concern; it has not only threatened people's physical health but has also affected their mental health and psychological well-being. It is necessary to develop and offer strategies to reduce the psychological impact of the outbreak and promote adaptive coping.ObjectiveThis study protocol aims to describe a self-administered web-based intervention (Mental Health COVID-19) based on the principles of positive psychology supported by elements of cognitive behavioral therapy and behavioral activation therapy to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression and increase positive emotions and sleep quality during and after the COVID-19 outbreak through a telepsychology system.MethodsA randomized controlled clinical superiority trial with two independent groups will be performed, with intrasubject measures at four evaluation periods: pretest, posttest, 3-month follow-up, and 6-month follow-up. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: self-administered intervention with assistance via chat or self-administered intervention without assistance via chat. The total required sample size will be 166 participants (83 per group).ResultsThe clinical trial is ongoing. This protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the Free School of Psychology-University of Behavioral Sciences (Escuela libre de Psicología-Universidad de Ciencias del Comportamiento). The aim is to publish the preliminary results in December 2020. A conservative approach will be adopted, and the size effect will be estimated using the Cohen d index with a significance level (α) of .05 (95% reliability) and a conventional 80% power statistic.ConclusionsThe central mechanism of action will be to investigate the effectiveness of an intervention based on positive psychology through a web platform that can be delivered through computers and tablets, with content that has been rigorously contextualized to the Mexican culture to provide functional strategies to help the target users cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04468893; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04468893International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/23117
Highlights
BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) [1]
Sin and Lyubomirsky [31] carried out a meta-analysis of 51 interventions involving 4266 participants, and the results revealed that positive psychology interventions did significantly improve well-being and decrease depressive symptoms
The aim of this study is to describe a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of a web-based self-administered positive psychology intervention program based on a telepsychology system (Mental Health COVID-19) for the reduction of anxious and depressive symptoms and the increase of positive emotions and sleep quality during and after the COVID-19 outbreak
Summary
The outbreak of COVID-19 has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) [1] It has affected people’s mental health and has had consequences for their psychological well-being. Increases in negative emotions (eg, anxiety, depression, and irritability) and sensitivity to social risks have been observed, as well as a decrease in positive emotions and life satisfaction after the official declaration of the epidemic of COVID-19 in China [3]. During this pandemic, public health measures have been implemented to mitigate the spread of the virus, such as physical distancing and confinement worldwide. It is necessary to develop and offer strategies to reduce the psychological impact of the outbreak and promote adaptive coping
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