© 2022 - 'Sign your Feelings' - Dr. Grisel Lopez-Escobar, PhD, LMHC, NCC
Alpha and Beta versions of the Intervention
The aim of the 2022 study was to validate the Alpha version of my therapeutic intervention, Sign your Feelings, through a four-week randomized control trial (RCT). This intervention involves hearing therapists working with hearing clients. The alpha version incorporated (a) discussions about the therapeutic alliance, (b) therapists teaching their clients 36 signs in ASL and (c) frequent emotional disclosure as clients learn and practice the signs.
Eighty adults from 10 U.S. States participated in the study. Sixteen therapists underwent training before administering the intervention, and sessions took place both virtually and in-person. Therapists conducted pre- and post-tests measuring wellbeing (via the CORE-10) and the therapeutic alliance (via the SRS).
Results did not render statistically significant differences for SRS total scores between the two groups (p =.194). CORE-10 total scores between the two groups were not statistically significant either (p = 0.736). However, results did show a statistically significant negative correlation of r = -.229 (p = .041) between SRS and CORE-10 posttest
scores.
Although individual items of the CORE-10 are not designed to be isolated, as part of the dissertation process, I nonetheless investigated potential differences between the groups
for each item. What I found was that under the prompt 'I have felt unhappy' under Item 9, yielded a p-value of .038, which is considered statistically significant.
Furthermore, this item's percentage improvement (PI) scores provided a 35.82 PI for the intervention group against a 9.33 PI for the TAU control group, thereby resulting in a 3.84-fold amelioration. Comparative gains for this item were much higher than any of the other items on the CORE-10 questionnaire.
For this reason, I decided to dedicate 6 months (October 2022 - March 2023) on conducting a second randomized control trial on a Beta version of the Sign your Feelings intervention, to see if can be effective with persons experiencing depression.