A Virtual Peer Agent for Counseling Adolescents With Stressful Life Events

NCT07305064 | Not Yet Recruiting DMC

• 1 other identifier: VIPeer Agent
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 50
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

This study aims to develop and evaluate a virtual companion agent for providing psychological support to adolescents who have recently experienced stressful life events. This is a single-arm, pre-post pilot trial. We plan to recruit 35 adolescents aged 14-25 to receive a 4-week intervention via the virtual agent. The intervention primarily consists of multi-turn conversations focused on helping adolescents cope with stressful events, identify emotions, enhance social support, and adopt positive coping strategies. The primary objectives are to evaluate the effectiveness of the virtual agent in improving psychological symptoms, resilience, emotional intelligence, and perceived stress, and to comprehensively assess its feasibility, acceptability, and safety.

Conditions

Adolescent - Emotional Problem; Agent; Psychological; Conversational

Keywords

adolescent; Stressful Life Events; Conversational agent; psychological; peer; mental health; depression

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Level of Psychological Symptoms

  Level of Psychological Symptoms: Assessed by change in scores on the Brief Symptom Inventory-53 (BSI-53). This 53-item instrument, which encompasses 9 dimensions, is rated on a 5-point Likert scale. A cut-off point of 63 or higher is used to define a positive case.

  Baseline [week 0], Week 1 of intervention, Week 2 of intervention, Week 3 of intervention, Week 4 of intervention

Secondary Outcomes (10)

• Psychological Resilience

  Baseline [week 0], Week 1 of intervention, Week 2 of intervention, Week 3 of intervention, Week 4 of intervention

• Social Support

  Baseline [week 0], Week 1 of intervention, Week 2 of intervention, Week 3 of intervention, Week 4 of intervention

• Emotional Intelligence

  Baseline [week 0], Week 1 of intervention, Week 2 of intervention, Week 3 of intervention, Week 4 of intervention

• Coping Strategies

  Baseline [week 0], Week 1 of intervention, Week 2 of intervention, Week 3 of intervention, Week 4 of intervention

• Participant Satisfaction

  Within 1 week after intervention completion

Other Outcomes (2)

• Expert Evaluation Questionnaire

  Within 1 week after intervention completion

• High-risk Identification Match Rate

  Within 1 week after intervention completion

Study Arms (1)

Virtual Peer Agent Counseling

EXPERIMENTAL

This is the single, experimental arm of the study. All enrolled participants receive the experimental intervention, which is the virtual peer agent counseling program. This group is designed to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of the agent-delivered support system in a real-world context, with participants completing all outcome assessments pre- and post-intervention for within-subject comparison.

Behavioral: Virtual Peer Agent Counseling

Interventions

Virtual Peer Agent Counseling BEHAVIORAL

A conversational virtual agent designed to provide psychological support to adolescents through multi-turn dialogues. Intervention components include: psychoeducation, emotion recognition training, coping strategy development, social support exploration, and personalized behavioral task ("to-do list") setting. The intervention lasts for 4 weeks, involving multiple structured session nodes and follow-up reminders during inter-session intervals.

Also known as: Conversational agent

Virtual Peer Agent Counseling

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 14 Years - 25 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• Aged between 14 and 25 years. Self-report of experiencing a stressful life event of moderate or greater severity within the past 6 months.
• Total score on the relevant stress subscale of the Brief Symptom Inventory-53 (BSI-53) used for screening is \< 63.
• Able to understand and provide informed consent (for minor participants, informed assent from the participant and informed consent from a parent or guardian are required).

You may not qualify if:

• Current or previous diagnosis of a severe mental disorder (e.g., major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder).
• Having received more than 4 sessions of continuous professional psychotherapy or psychotropic medication treatment within the past 12 months.
• Presence of severe suicidal or self-injurious behavior that is not effectively controlled and requires immediate clinical intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Sun Yat-sen University: lead

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Psychological Well-Being; Depression

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Personal Satisfaction; Behavior; Behavioral Symptoms

Study Officials

• Wei Xia

  Sun Yat-sen University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Wei Xia, PhD

CONTACT

8618823359471; xiaw23@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Shuliag Zhao, Master

CONTACT

8617863634052; zhaoshliang@mail2.sysu.edu.cn

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Associate professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 29, 2025
• First Posted: December 26, 2025
• Study Start: December 5, 2025
• Primary Completion: January 10, 2026
• Study Completion: January 30, 2026
• Last Updated: December 26, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-12

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: After the publication of the study
• Access Criteria: The researchers can access the data by contacting the PI at xiaw23@mail.sysu.edu.cn with the research purpose described.