AcAdeMiC: Acting With Acceptance, Mindfulness and Compassion to Overcome Test/Exam Anxiety

NCT04861116 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: SFRH/BD/143520/2019
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 64
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Test Anxiety is a highly prevalent and impairing condition in adolescents (i.e., 9th to 12th grade students), significantly impacting on their mental health and well-being. Among Portuguese university students, test anxiety is the primary reason for seeking specialized psychological support, suggesting the importance of early intervention. Test anxiety associates to low self-compassion, acceptance and mindfulness, which have been increasingly acknowledged in literature as important processes to cultivate towards human experience and suffering, within intervention programs, particularly in adolescence, and in anxiety and fear of failure in academic settings. These processes are covered and enhanced within comprehensive models and evidence-based therapies that adopt an integrative, contextual and biopsychosocial approach, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), as well as an evolutionary approach, such as Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT). These approaches focus on receiving internal events (e.g., thoughts, emotions, memories) in an accepting and compassionate way, as part of human experience, without changing them, while developing a sense of vitality, well-being and commitment to valued ends in life, instead of focusing solely or mainly on symptom reduction (although it is usually a consequent outcome). However, there are no empirically validated therapeutic programs for adolescents with test anxiety promoting these processes combined. ICT-based interventions are accessible, convenient, cost-effective and have been proved effective in reducing anxiety disorders' symptomatology. Even though there are some empirically validated online interventions for test anxiety in adolescents, having shown promising results, these were mainly self-help/module-based programs, without a clinician facilitating the intervention. This project aims to develop and implement a 12-week ICT-based targeted, facilitated and manualized individual intervention for adolescent students, developing compassion, acceptance and mindfulness, in order to help improve test anxiety's regulation (and consequently symptom reduction), as well as increase general and school-related well-being, while promoting valued life action.

Conditions

Adolescents; Test Anxiety

Keywords

test anxiety; adolescents; acceptance; mindfulness; compassion

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Test Anxiety

  Reactions to Tests for Adolescents (RT-A). Participants rate the items on a Likert scale from 1 to 4. Lower scores indicate a better outcome

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

Secondary Outcomes (6)

• General well-being

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• School-related well-being

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• Psychological flexibility in test situations

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• General psychological flexibility

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• Mindfulness

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

Other Outcomes (3)

• Depression, anxiety and stress

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• Self-criticism

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

• Shame

  6 months [From Baseline to 6 months follow-up]

Study Arms (2)

Intervention program for test anxiety

EXPERIMENTAL

12 weekly ICT-delivered individual sessions.

Behavioral: Intervention program for test anxiety

Control

NO INTERVENTION

Waiting list that will have access to the intervention program after the 6-month follow-up assessment.

Interventions

Intervention program for test anxiety BEHAVIORAL

12-week ICT-based manualized, targeted and facilitated individual intervention for adolescent students, that aims to promote compassion, acceptance and mindfulness, in order to help improve test anxiety's regulation (and consequently symptom reduction), as well as increase general and school-related well-being, while promoting valued life action.

Also known as: AcAdeMiC: Acting With Acceptance, Mindfulness and Compassion to Overcome Test/Exam Anxiety

Intervention program for test anxiety

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 13 Years - 18 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• provision of written informed consent by participants and their legal guardians;
• presence of high levels of test anxiety, confirmed through self-report assessment and clinical interview;
• educational level from 9th to 12th grade;
• absence of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, except Specific Learning Disorders of mild severity;
• absence of any degree of cognitive decline or impairment;
• absence of any severe Depressive Disorder;
• absence of any other severe psychiatric condition (e.g., Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Psychotic Disorders);
• not being under treatment for a psychiatric condition.

You may not qualify if:

• no provision of written informed consent by participants and their legal guardians;
• absence of high levels of test anxiety, confirmed through self-report assessment;
• educational level below 9th and above 12th grade;
• presence of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, except Specific Learning Disorders of mild severity;
• presence of any degree of cognitive decline or impairment;
• presence of any severe Depressive Disorder;
• presence of any other severe psychiatric condition (e.g., Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Psychotic Disorders);
• being under treatment for a psychiatric condition.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Coimbra: lead
• Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University of Coimbra

Coimbra, 3000-115, Portugal

Location

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Mindfulness

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Behavior Therapy; Psychotherapy; Behavioral Disciplines and Activities

Study Officials

• Cláudia P. Pires, M.Sc.

  University of Coimbra

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 22, 2021
• First Posted: April 27, 2021
• Study Start: March 15, 2021
• Primary Completion: July 31, 2022
• Study Completion: July 31, 2022
• Last Updated: December 2, 2022

Record last verified: 2022-12

Locations

PT (1)