The Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Motivation

NCT03677635 | Completed Results

• 1 other identifier: 214063
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 31
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 2

Brief Summary

People with a diagnosis of psychosis often experience low motivation and pleasure when thinking about doing future activities. This leads, quite understandably, to doing fewer activities they used to enjoy and not taking up opportunities to do new activities. One model suggests that this may be partly due to difficulties using memories of previous events to help boost motivation and anticipation before a future activity. Research shows that people with psychosis may recall previous events in less detail. These memories therefore may not be as helpful as they could be for motivation. This study will investigate this by asking people with experience of psychosis and low motivation who are seen by a care team in South London and Maudsley NHS Trust to attend two research sessions. In the first session the participants will be asked to recall memories of events from their lives and the researcher will assess how detailed the memories are and how much the participant refers to the past and future. Alongside this task the participants will also be asked to complete measures of symptoms such as low pleasure and motivation as well as a measure of depression. These will be used to find out if the detail and specificity of the memories are related to these symptoms in people with psychosis. The second half of the study will then investigate whether additional prompts to support positive memory retrieval can increase the specificity of this and subsequently improve mood, motivation and self-belief. Participants will be randomised to one of two groups. The clinical group will be guided through their memory recall using prompts and a control group will be asked to recall positive memories without prompts. If the investigators show that supporting memory recall is beneficial then memories for past events may be an important target for future therapies.

Conditions

Psychosis

Keywords

Negative Symptoms; Autobiographical Memory

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Post-Intervention Motivation Score

  A rating on a visual analogue scale assessing motivation to repeat the same activity recalled in the future. The scale is rated from 0-100 and a higher score indicated better outcome.

  Immediately after completing the intervention

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Post-Intervention Anticipatory Pleasure

  Immediately after completing the intervention

Study Arms (2)

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Guided autobiographical memory recall to enhance specificity and links to the future.

Behavioral: Guided Autobiographical Memory Recall

Control

NO INTERVENTION

Recall without prompts or psychoeducation video.

Interventions

Guided Autobiographical Memory Recall BEHAVIORAL

Participants are asked to recall positive autobiographical memories with the assistance of prompts to promote specificity, generalisability and links to the future. The participants will also view a 5min psychoeducation video on the subject of memory specificity and motivation.

Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

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

You may qualify if:

• A diagnosis of non-affective psychosis (as determined by medical records).
• Above 18yrs old.
• A score of at least 18 on the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms.
• A sufficient command of the English language to engage with the research materials

You may not qualify if:

• Lack of capacity to provide informed consent.
• Primary diagnosis of intellectual disability, head injury, substance misuse or known organic cause of psychosis

Sponsors & Collaborators

• King's College London: lead

Study Sites (2)

South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

London, BR3 3BX, United Kingdom

Location

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, KCL

London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Psychotic Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders; Mental Disorders

Results Point of Contact

• Title: Dr Clementine Edwards
• Organization: King's College London

clementine.edwards@kcl.ac.uk

07557866053

Publication Agreements

• PI is Sponsor Employee: Yes

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 10, 2017
• First Posted: September 19, 2018
• Study Start: May 18, 2017
• Primary Completion: March 31, 2018
• Study Completion: February 19, 2020
• Last Updated: July 18, 2025
• Results First Posted: July 18, 2025

Record last verified: 2020-02

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

GB (2)