Teaching adolescents effective coping skills can help them to manage stress, which is associated with health-risk behaviors including substance use and risky sexual behavior. Whereas stress reduction interventions commonly focus on reducing negative affect, there is a growing body of research that indicates that positive affect is beneficial in the context of stress. Drawing from our work (Folkman &Moskowitz, 2000) and the growing body of literature on predictors of positive affect under stress (Zautra et al., 2002, 2005), we developed a novel stress reduction intervention that has been successful in improving mood in high risk adult populations. The 5-session intervention teaches 8 skills (noticing positive events, capitalizing upon or savoring them, gratitude, mindfulness, positive reappraisal, personal strengths, attainable goals, and acts of kindness;Moskowitz, 2010;Moskowitz et al., under review). Using stress and coping theory (Lazarus &Folkman, 1984;Folkman, 1997), the broaden and build theory of positive affect (Fredrickson,1998), and the risk and protective factor framework (Hawkins, Catalano, &Miller, 1992) as our guide, we recently tailored the positive affect intervention to be delivered to adolescents as a school-based intervention: Coping and Emotional Development for Adolescents to Reduce Stress (CEDARS). In this study we propose a preliminary efficacy pilot trial of the CEDARS program in a sample of 60 students from a low resource, predominantly racial/ethnic minority public high school at high risk for engaging in risky health behaviors.
The specific aims of the study are to: 1) investigate the preliminary effects of CEDARS on perceived stress, coping, and positive and negative affect;2) determine preliminary evidence regarding whether CEDARS participation is related to reduced substance use, sexual risk behavior, and other health behaviors;and 3) determine whether affect and coping mediate the effect of the CEDARS intervention on health behaviors and attitudes. The proposed study will lay the groundwork to determine whether a more definitive R01-level randomized controlled trial to rigorously test the benefit of CEDARS as a school-based prevention program is warranted.
Teaching adolescents effective coping skills can help them to manage stress, which is associated with risky health behaviors including substance use and sexual risk behavior. Current programs to reduce stress tend to focus on reducing negative emotions. However, there is accumulating evidence indicating that positive emotions are uniquely beneficial in the stress and coping process. We developed a novel stress reduction intervention that has been successful in improving mood in high risk adult populations. The 5-session intervention teaches 8 skills (noticing positive events, capitalizing upon or savoring them, gratitude, mindfulness, positive reappraisal, personal strengths, attainable goals, and acts of kindness). We recently adapted the intervention to be delivered to youth as a school-based intervention: Coping and Emotional Development for Adolescents to Reduce Stress (CEDARS). In this study we propose a test of the CEDARS program in a sample of 60 students from a low resource, predominantly racial/ethnic minority public high school who are at high risk for engaging in risky health behaviors. We will test whether participating in the CEDARS program improves students'positive emotion and coping and reduces their negative emotion and stress;and reduces students'substance use, sexual risk behavior, and improves other health behaviors, such as sleep, nutrition, and exercise. We will also test whether improvements in health behavior outcomes are the result of improvements in emotion and coping. The proposed study is a pilot study that will help us to determine whether a randomized controlled trial to test CEDARS as a school-based prevention program is warranted.
