Psychosocial Functioning clinical trials at University of California Health

Nearly 50% of the adult workforce experience adverse psychological symptoms (e.g., stress, depression, burnout, etc.) stemming from workplace stressors, with healthcare workers experiencing rates as high as 80%. Some common complaints and downstream consequences of working in high-stress healthcare occupations are elevated levels of perceived stress, depression, and burnout. These conditions have been associated with unfavorable occupational (e.g., increased medical errors), patient (e.g., increased mortality rates), and provider-related outcomes (e.g., increased rates of cardiovascular disease), imposing a heavy burden on an already stretched system. Given the impact of perceived stress, depression, and burnout on employee and patient health, a clear need exists to develop effective interventions to reduce distress and promote well-being among healthcare professionals. In particular, interventions that target processes particularly vulnerable to provider stress (e.g., compassion) are needed. The present study will evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a mindfulness-based intervention inspired by the Buddhist Four Immeasurables practice on reducing perceived stress (primary outcome), depressive symptoms, burnout, and biological markers of inflammation, and enhancing psychological well-being and sleep quality (secondary outcomes) in 80 healthcare workers. Additionally, we will investigate several mediators (compassion, positive emotions, equanimity, and mindfulness) of intervention effects. Participants will be healthcare employees of UCLA Health. They will be enrolled in a six-week, two-arm randomized controlled trial. Participants will complete self-report questionnaires at baseline, mid-course, and post-intervention to assess study outcomes and mediators. We aim to advance the study of interventions that reduce distress and promote well-being using practices that cultivate kind feelings toward oneself and others.

Sleep disturbance has a range of negative effects on psychosocial and biological processes important for academic and social success as well as mental and physical health among adolescents and young adults. Limited, inconsistent, and poor quality sleep lead to anxiety, depressive feelings, loneliness, and fatigue over time. These symptoms, in turn, interfere with the ability to get a good night's rest. Sleep disruption can also upregulate inflammatory processes during the years of adolescence and young adulthood in ways that can create risk for the development of chronic health conditions (e.g., diabetes, depression, cardiovascular disease) in later adulthood. Sleep, however, is also a modifiable health behavior, leading many institutions to embark upon efforts to improve the sleep of their students. The challenge is to identify programs and interventions that can simultaneously improve sleep, be delivered at scale, and be easily completed by students. UCLA has developed and validated a group-based mindfulness intervention, Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs), that has demonstrated beneficial effects on sleep in adults and may offer a promising, scalable approach for reducing sleep disturbance and improving associated psychological and biological outcomes in college students. However, this approach requires validation in this population relative to sleep education programs, which increasingly dominate the college landscape. To address this important public health problem, the investigators propose to conduct a single site, two-arm, parallel group randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of the validated, group-based, six-week MAPs intervention vs. sleep education, an active time and attention matched control condition, for first and second year undergraduate students who report poor sleep at this critical transition year. The investigators are aiming to enroll approximately 240 participants. Participants will complete questionnaires, provide blood samples for immune analysis and will be provided with wrist actigraphs to wear for 7 days, in order to collect objective measurements of sleep at pre- and post-intervention visits, and at a 3-month follow-up visit. Additional follow-up assessments will take place at 6-month, and 12-month post-intervention to evaluate persistence of effects.