Improving the Mental Health of Home Health Aides

NCT ID: NCT06071221

Last Updated: 2025-12-17

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

RECRUITING

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

100 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2025-01-27

Study Completion Date

2026-06-30

Brief Summary

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The goal of this study is to improve the mental health of home health aides, a workforce that provides care for adults at home but whose own health has been historically poor. The main questions the study aims to answer are:

* Will a health program called Living Healthy, which provides health education and support with positive thinking, be used by home health aides and do they like it?
* Does Living Healthy actually improve home health aides' mood compared to what they usually do to take care of themselves?

Participants in the study will get an 8-week health program called Living Healthy over 3 months. Some of the participants will also have a 'peer coach' who is another home health aide who's been trained to help them with the program and learn some ways to feel better.

The study will compare the experiences of home health aides who get Living Healthy plus a peer coach with those who only get the Living Healthy program.

Detailed Description

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The overall goal of the proposed project is to improve the mental health of home health aides, one of the fastest growing sectors of the healthcare industry, comprised predominantly of middle-aged women of color with high levels of stress, depressive symptoms, and emotional exhaustion. Improving home health aides' mental health and well-being is not only critical to their own longevity as a workforce, but it has the potential to improve the health of the patients for whom they care. The investigators propose adapting the Living Healthy intervention, a 8-session peer coach-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy program on healthy habits, to the home health aide workforce and pilot testing it. The specific aim of this study is to conduct a 2-arm pilot randomized control trial among 100 home health aides (intervention arm: 50; enhanced usual care arm: 50) to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of the intervention compared to enhanced usual care (education on healthy habits alone). The primary hypothesis is that the intervention will be feasible (\>80% of aides will complete the program) and acceptable (\>90% of aides will report high levels of satisfaction). The secondary hypothesis is that participants who receive the intervention arm will experience fewer depressive symptoms at follow-up, compared to those in the control arm. Most of the study will be conducted virtually, while initial onboarding may be in-person.

Conditions

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Mental Health Issue

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Outcome Assessors

Study Groups

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Living Healthy educational program + Peer Coaching

Home Health Aides (HHAs) will receive educational content via the CareConnect application, an eLearning mobile platform that provides educational courses for HHA certification and keeps track of their service hours to maintain NYS compliance. HHAs in this intervention arm will receive the 8-session adapted Living Healthy program via CareConnect over 3 months. Each HHA will be paired with a trained Peer Coach participant who will work through the structured program with the HHA.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Living Healthy educational program + peer coaching

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The Living Healthy intervention is an 8-session health education program with cognitive behavioral training (CBT) techniques. For those in the interventional arm, the Living Healthy intervention program will be delivered by trained peer coaches by telephone or Zoom over 3 months. In this study, trained peer coaches are trained home health aides themselves. Informed by social cognitive theory (SCT), peer coaches train participants on cognitive behavior techniques and empower participants to adopt positive health behaviors through personalized goal setting, motivational interviewing, and peer modeling. Each content-based session incorporates principles of CBT, teaching participants to recognize and modify negative thinking and modifying outcome expectations through self-monitoring, reflection, and practice.

Living Healthy educational program

Home Health Aides (HHAs) in the attention control arm will receive an 8-session CareConnect delivered general health program (covering topics distinct from the Living Healthy intervention) that is strictly informational without any elements of CBT.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Living Healthy educational program

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Participants assigned to receive health education alone will be asked to read health education (online; covering aspects of the Living Healthy program) which corresponds to a weekly topic about health. They will be called by a research assistant each week to prompt them to do this and answer any questions they might have about the materials.

Interventions

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Living Healthy educational program + peer coaching

The Living Healthy intervention is an 8-session health education program with cognitive behavioral training (CBT) techniques. For those in the interventional arm, the Living Healthy intervention program will be delivered by trained peer coaches by telephone or Zoom over 3 months. In this study, trained peer coaches are trained home health aides themselves. Informed by social cognitive theory (SCT), peer coaches train participants on cognitive behavior techniques and empower participants to adopt positive health behaviors through personalized goal setting, motivational interviewing, and peer modeling. Each content-based session incorporates principles of CBT, teaching participants to recognize and modify negative thinking and modifying outcome expectations through self-monitoring, reflection, and practice.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Living Healthy educational program

Participants assigned to receive health education alone will be asked to read health education (online; covering aspects of the Living Healthy program) which corresponds to a weekly topic about health. They will be called by a research assistant each week to prompt them to do this and answer any questions they might have about the materials.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Currently working as a home health aide
* Speak English or Spanish
* ≥ 18 years of age
* Have mild depressive symptoms (Personal Health Questionnaire 8-item \[PHQ8\] scale ≥ 5 points), or other risk factors for poor mental health as assessed by the following domains including stress (Cohen's Perceived Stress 4-item scale \[PSS4\] ≥5) or loneliness (≥6 on the 3-item UCLA Loneliness scale).

Exclusion Criteria

* Speak a language other than English or Spanish
* Less than 1 year of job experience as a home health aide
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Weill Medical College of Cornell University

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Madeline R Sterling, MD, MPH, MS

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Locations

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1199 SEIU Home Care Industry Education Fund

New York, New York, United States

Site Status RECRUITING

Weill Cornell Medicine

New York, New York, United States

Site Status RECRUITING

Countries

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United States

Central Contacts

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Madeline R Sterling, MD, MPH, MS

Role: CONTACT

6469625029

Facility Contacts

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Faith Wiggins

Role: primary

Madeline R Sterling, MD, MPH, MS

Role: primary

646-962-5029

Other Identifiers

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22-02024420

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id