Symposia
Transdiagnostic
Evan M. Kleiman, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rutgers, The State university of new jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Evan M. Kleiman, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rutgers, The State university of new jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Jesse Finkelstein, M.A.
Graduate Student
Rutgers University
Piscataway, NJ
Annmarie Wacha-Montes, PsyD
Program Director Of The Center For Traumatic Stress, Resilience And Recovery
Northwell Health
Glen Oaks, New York
April L. Yeager, PhD
Doctoral Student
Rutgers University
Bridgewater Township, New Jersey
Allison K. Ruork, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Rutgers University
Piscataway, New Jersey
Qingqing Yin, M.S.
Graduate Student
Rutgers University
Piscataway, NJ
John Kellerman, MA
Graduate Student
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Joanne Kim, MA
Graduate Student
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Molly Stern, PsyM
Graduate Student
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Linda Oshin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Rutgers University
Edison, New Jersey
Shireen L. Rizvi, ABPP, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Rutgers University
Piscataway, New Jersey
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) provides skills to improve emotion regulation and distress tolerance, among other factors. Although often used in more severe populations like those with Borderline Personality Disorder, the core DBT skills may be useful to anyone experiencing a distressing period of time, such as college students experiencing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, we conducted a study of a randomized clinical trial (NCT04558411) to examine the feasibility and initial efficacy an intervention that delivered brief (~5 minute) animated videos teaching core DBT skills during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized (1) that the intervention would be feasible and (2) that those who were assigned to the intervention condition would report greater self-efficacy for managing negative emotions. Participants in this study were 153 college students who completed six weeks of 4x/daily smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of factors such as self-efficacy to manage negative emotions and weekly assessments of factors such as how well one did at managing their emotions in the past week. Participants were randomized to either receive (or not) 14 animated videos teaching DBT skills over a 14-day period in addition to the monitoring. Results indicated that this intervention was feasible (83% of the intervention group watched at least one of the skills videos). We found that participants in the intervention condition reported greater levels of self-efficacy to manage negative emotions (t = 7.56, p < .001). We also found that momentary reports of self-efficacy for managing negative emotions was positively associated with how successfully participants reported managing emotions over the past week. This association was stronger for those in the intervention condition (b = 0.08, 95%CI = [0.06, 0.10], p < .001) compared to those in the control condition (b = 0.03, 95%CI = [0.01, 0.06], p = .011). Taken together, these findings support that our brief intervention to teach DBT skills was both feasible and effective. This is particularly notable because of the relatively low cost of deploying a mobile intervention like this to college students.