NCT06276725: WW

Writing Wrongs: Expressive Writing for Microaggressions

Completed NA Last updated 3 January 2025

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Writing Wrongs in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in 70 participants. Completed in 31 December 2024.

Timeline

18 March 2024

Primary endpoint
31 December 2024

31 December 2024

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Auburn University
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	70
Start date	18 March 2024
Primary completion	31 December 2024
Estimated completion	31 December 2024
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Writing Wrongs

Conditions studied

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder — all drugs for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder →
• Discriminatory Stress — all drugs for Discriminatory Stress →
• Microaggression — all drugs for Microaggression →

Sponsor

Auburn University

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder or Discriminatory Stress. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Racial and ethnic based stressors, such as microaggressions, are pervasive, distressing, and result in lasting negative repercussions for minoritized students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). These racial and ethnic based stressors are experienced in addition to the universally experienced stressors of higher education. Negative repercussions of microaggressions include increased drop out or transfer rates, distress, fatigue resulting in decreased academic performance, and depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Expressive writing (EW) may be a scalable intervention for addressing the negative repercussions resulting from microaggressions experienced by minoritized students at PWIs. Previous research suggests that EW for stressful life events results in benefits such as reduced depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms, improved coping strategies, and reduced activity restriction. Despite such benefits, EW was not designed to specifically address microaggressions in a minoritized student population. Informed by the ADAPT-ITT model, our research group conducted a pilot study with similar procedures. This pilot study demonstrated the acceptability of an adapted version of the EW intervention titled Writing Wrongs (WW), as well as recommended future modifications for WW. In the current study we aim to conduct a randomized-controlled trial to establish the efficacy of WW in alleviating clinical symptoms. We hypothesize that WW will improve symptoms of racial and discriminatory trauma and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress over time and compared to an assessment-only condition. We will conduct exploratory analyses to examine short-term changes in affect within and across sessions and across conditions. We will recruit minoritized students enrolled at a PWI. Participants will complete a pre-intervention assessment prior to being randomized into the two conditions. Participants in the intervention condition will engage in three sessions of WW and complete measures of clinical symptoms across multiple time points (i.e., pre-intervention, immediately after the final writing session, one week after the final session). Participants in the assessment-only condition will be administered the same measures at the same timepoints and given access to the WW after completing the study. If found to be efficacious, WW has the potential to be widely disseminated to minoritized college students who experience microaggressions.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.