Intervention Effect of Emotional Working Memory Training on University Students With Depressive Symptom

NCT05861414 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 2022159
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 50
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Objective: To investigate the effects of emotional working memory training (EWM-T) on depressive symptoms and rumination among university students. Methods: The experimental group comprised 25 participants who underwent 21 days of emotional working memory training, which involved viewing a continuous stream of negative emotional face content on a grid and remembering the faces and locations presented on the grid. The control group consisted of 25 participants. The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the Chinese version of the Character-Digital Breadth Test, and the Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS) were used as the pre- and post-test indicators.

Conditions

Depressive Symptoms

Keywords

Emotional working memory training; Depressive symptoms

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (3)

• Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) score

  Beck Depression Inventory-Ⅱ is the most prevalent self-report scale assessing the presence and severity of depressive symptoms. It is a 21-item scale that was used to assess the severity of depressive symptoms in the past two weeks. The scores range from 0 to 63. A higher total score on the scale indicated more severe depressive symptoms.

  one month

• Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS) score

  The Ruminative Response Scale (RRS) is a scale of 22 items scored on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always). It was used to assess ruminative thinking, with higher scores indicating a higher degree of ruminative symptoms. It includes three dimensions: symptom rumination, forced thinking, and introspective.

  one month

• The Chinese version of the Character-Digital Breadth Test score

  The experimenter read aloud some combinations of characters and numbers, and after the experimenter finished speaking, the participants first stated the numbers in descending order and then the characters in descending order. For example, in the fourth pass: "8B3A," the participant needed to answer "38AB," and then the test began after the person understood the rules. Different levels (2-9 levels) had various lengths of characters and numbers. The higher the level, the longer the length. Each level contained four items. Scoring was based on the total number of correct items passed (correct number of character digit spans) and the rank of the longest items passed (longest sequence of character digit spans). Each item was completed when all items at a certain level were incorrect. The greater the number of correct items passed, the higher the level of the longest items, the greater the working memory breadth, and the stronger the working memory ability .

  one month

Study Arms (2)

Experimental group

EXPERIMENTAL

21 days of emotional working memory training

Behavioral: EWM-T

control group

NO INTERVENTION

Interventions

EWM-T BEHAVIORAL

This paradigm was adapted from the n-back program described by Jaeggi et al. (2009) and comprised an affective dual n-back task consisting of a series of trials, each of which simultaneously presented a face (for 500 ms) on a 4 × 4 grid on a monitor. Intermediate interval 2500ms, during which, Participants press a button to determine if the current face or position is consistent with the first n. If the position is the same, press "F"; if the face is the same, press "J"; if the face and position are not the same, do not react. The faces used in this training were selected from the Chinese Facial Emotional Picture System (CFAPS), and 12 faces (six male and six female) with fear, anger, disgust, and sadness were selected as n-back experimental materials.

Experimental group

Eligibility Criteria

• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Study from Fujian Medical University, BDI-II scores above 14 points.

You may not qualify if:

• no suicidal behavior

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Yu-hua Weng: lead

Study Sites (1)

School of Health, Fujian Medical University

Fuzhou, China

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Depression

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior

Study Design

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

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 26, 2023
• First Posted: May 16, 2023
• Study Start: October 11, 2022
• Primary Completion: November 11, 2022
• Study Completion: March 21, 2023
• Last Updated: May 16, 2023

Record last verified: 2023-05

Locations

CN (1)