Testing the Efficacy of Opening Doors: A Career Guidance Intervention for Individuals With Psychiatric Disabilities

NCT03409991 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 3727
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 108
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

This project is designed to develop and test a career guidance intervention called Opening Doors (OD) expected to assist individuals with psychiatric disabilities acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to pursue and advance in their careers. This project is a three-stage mixed methods study to 1) refine and pilot-test the Opening Doors career guidance intervention, 2) conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) to test the efficacy of the intervention with a waitlist control group, and 3) conduct a qualitative and process sub-study of the critical ingredients of the OD intervention from the perspective of participants. This study takes place at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (CPR). It is hypothesized that when compared to control group participants, individuals receiving Opening Doors will report 1) higher levels of vocational and pre-vocational activities, 2) greater career adaptability, fewer dysfunctional and more functional career thoughts, 3) greater work hope when compared to the waitlist control group participants, 4) greater vocational goal attainment, and 5) improved symptoms and functioning.

Conditions

Psychiatric Disorder

Keywords

Psychiatric Rehabilitation; Career Counseling

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (7)

• Employment and Vocational Activities Checklist

  Participants will report greater engagement in vocational activities. Employment and Vocational Activities Checklist, a brief instrument used in prior Center studies that inquires about current pre-employment and vocational activities, including for example, career development activities and independent job searches

  12 months

• Work Hope Scale (Juntunen & Wettersten, 2006)

  24-item 7-point Likert-type scale that measures the construct of work hope, and includes: Work Goals, Agency, and Pathways. The scale is a stable and well-validated measure with reported internal consistency of the overall scale of .93 and .87, .68 and .81 for the sub-scales

  12 months

• Goal Attainment Scale (GAS, Kiresuk, et al, 1968)

  Goal Attainment Scale provides a structured approach to determining goal achievement regardless of the type or uniqueness of goal (Kiresuk \& Sherman, 1968). Recent reviews of GAS confirms that it can be useful in measuring rehabilitation goals, is reliable and sensitive to change (Marson, et al., 2009; Hurn, et al., 2006, Turner-Stokes, 2009)

  12 months

• Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS; Savickas & Porfeli, 2012)

  Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS; Savickas \& Porfeli, 2012) measures an individual's psychosocial readiness and resources for coping with current and imminent vocational development tasks, occupational transitions, and work traumas using four scales which measure concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. Internal consistency estimates for the subscale and total scores ranged from good to excellent i.e. .82 to .88. Concurrent validity evidence was found to be strong between the subscales of CAAS and the Vocational Identity Status Assessment (VISA; Porfeli, Lee, Vondracek, \& Weigold, 2011)

  12 months

• Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; Sampson et al., 1996)

  The CTI consists of 48 Likert-scale items rated on a 4-point agree scale representing typical dysfunctional/negative career thoughts including Decision-Making Confusion, Commitment Anxiety, and External Conflict. The CTI developers report alpha coefficients for the total score ranging from .93 to .97; and for the subscales ranged from .74 to .94. The authors also provide support for the CTI's construct validity, convergent validity, and criterion validity.

  12 months

• Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale (BASIS - 24) (Eisen, et al., 2004, Eisen et al., 2006)

  The BASIS-24 is designed to measure mood disturbances, anxiety, interpersonal and role functioning, daily living skills, psychotic symptoms, impulsivity and substance use using a 5-point Likert-type scale. Extensive and excellent reliability and validity data exists for the instrument from a national study involving over 5,000 participants (Eisen, et al., 2004; Eisen, et al., 2006)

  12 months

• Brief Quality of Life Scale, Subjective Items (Lehman Quality of Life Scale, Brief Version, Lehman, 1988)

  Brief Quality of Life Scale, Subjective Items (Lehman Quality of Life Scale, Brief Version, Lehman, 1988) measures both objective and subjective quality of life across multiple domains including living situation, family relations, social relations, work, and the like. It has considerable psychometric data suggesting adequate validity and reliability (Lehman, 1995; Russo et al., 1997). We will employ 2 items from this scale: the subjective measures of life in general and work satisfaction.

  12 months

Study Arms (2)

Experimental

EXPERIMENTAL

Receives the 12-week Opening Doors group sessions, and up to 8 individual career counseling sessions.

Behavioral: Opening Doors

Waitlist Control

NO INTERVENTION

Offered non-vocational classes at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, and offered the chance to attend the Opening Doors program at the end of their enrolled 12-month study period.

Interventions

Opening Doors BEHAVIORAL

This project is designed as a three-stage mixed methods study to test the efficacy of a career guidance intervention for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. We are using both a randomized clinical trial design coupled with a small qualitative sub-study.

Experimental

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• are 18 years or older;
• have a psychiatric disability as evidenced by a) the presence of a psychiatric diagnosis, b) the interference of psychiatric symptoms with important areas of life functioning such as, work or school, and c) current or past use of psychiatric services such as, medications, hospitalizations, psychotherapy, etc.;
• express an interest in exploring their career options;
• are unemployed or engaged in part-time employment;
• express an interest in working in the future;
• have basic knowledge of using computers; and,
• are willing and able to attend a 1-2 hour orientation session at the Recovery Center.

You may not qualify if:

• are unable to give full and knowing consent;
• are unable to participate in data collection;
• are actively receiving vocational counseling; and, 4) have full-time paid employment;
• \) have a legal guardian.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Boston University Charles River Campus: lead
• National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation

Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Mental Disorders

Study Officials

• Erna S. Rogers, Sc.D.

  Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: CARE PROVIDER
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: January 18, 2018
• First Posted: January 25, 2018
• Study Start: September 24, 2015
• Primary Completion: September 14, 2021
• Study Completion: September 14, 2021
• Last Updated: October 22, 2021

Record last verified: 2021-09

Locations

US (1)