Recruiting

Help Texts

Sponsor:

UCLA

Code:

NCT07228260

Conditions

Bereavement

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

list of resources for grief

text-based intervention for grief

Study Details

Brief summary:

The proposed study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Help Texts, a weekly text-based program, among bereaved students at UCLA. Specifically, the study will evaluate whether Help Texts reduces grief severity and symptoms of depression, and whether it improves academic functioning (e.g., graduation, grades, student enrollment retention).

The investigators hypothesize that bereaved UCLA students who receive a 12-month Help Texts weekly digital text intervention will have reduced grief severity and depressive symptoms and increased academic functioning compared to bereaved UCLA students in a waitlist control condition receiving treatment as usual (i.e., list of resources for grief).

Participants will complete surveys at four timepoints: baseline and 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months following enrollment. They will be randomly assigned to either the treatment condition (receive 12-month Help Texts subscription at enrollment) or the waitlist control condition (receive list of resources for grief at enrollment, and receive 12-month Help Texts subscription at 6 months following enrollment). The Help Texts program involves texts offering psychoeducation related to grief and coping strategies, delivered twice weekly.

Conditions

Bereavement

Study ID

NCT07228260

Start date

Oct 30, 2025

Status verified date

Oct, 2025

Completion date

Jun, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Jun, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Enrolled UCLA student
  • At least 18 years old
  • Experienced death of a close person in the past 12 months
  • Able to read English

Study Design

Enrollment

126 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

other: Waitlist Control with Treatment as Usual

At study enrollment, participants receive treatment as usual--a list of resources relevant to grief.

At 6 months following study enrollment, participants will receive a 12-month subscription to Help Texts, a text-based intervention that delivers two texts per week providing bereavement psychoeducation, validation, and coping strategies.

active comparator: Treatment

At study enrollment, participants will receive a 12-month subscription to Help Texts, a text- based intervention that delivers two texts per week providing bereavement psychoeducation, validation, and coping strategies.

Interventions

list of resources for grief

Participants will receive treatment as usual, consisting of a list of resources for coping with grief both on-campus and off-campus

text-based intervention for grief

Help Texts delivers texts twice a week over a period of 12-months to provide psychoeducation, validation, and coping strategies relevant to bereavement. The The texts offer some customization in specifying the name of the participant and their deceased loved one, as well as providing texts relevant to the participants' cause of bereavement and relationship to their deceased loved one.

Primary outcome measure

  • Prolonged Grief Disorder-Revised (PG-13-R) [ Time Frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment ]
  • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-3) [ Time Frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Michelle Chang, M.A., C.Phil

(323) 284-4695changmichelle@g.ucla.edu

Theodore F. Robles, Ph.D.

(310) 794-9362robles@psych.ucla.edu

Locations

Franz Hall

Recruiting

Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095

Contacts

Michelle Chang, M.A.

3232844695griefstudy@ucla.edu

Principal Investigator:

Theodore Robles, Ph.D.

More Information

Sponsor

University of California, Los Angeles

Last update posted

Nov 14, 2025

Last verified

Oct, 2025

Keywords

  • bereavement
  • digital intervention
  • text-based intervention
  • college students

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-09. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of California, Los Angeles on 2025-11-14.