PSYCH 664 Week 6 Research Proposal Example

A Proposal for a Randomized Mixed Methods Study of Intergenerational Phone Calls for Loneliness in Senior Housing

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSYCH/664: Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology

Week 6 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The senior community, the pilot and the proposed study are composites written for a model paper; research findings and methodological sources come from the references listed.

This proposal lays out a randomized study testing whether a weekly call from a trained college volunteer lessens loneliness for people living in a senior community, building on a twelve-week pilot. It is written for the community's leadership and the partner college's review board.

Background and Significance

Loneliness, a painful gap between the connection a person wants and the connection they have, is common among older adults and matters for health. Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) pooled 148 prospective studies and found that people with stronger social relationships were about half again as likely to survive over the follow-up periods, an effect on the scale of smoking. Not every effort to connect people works, however. Masi et al. (2011) reported that effects shrank in randomized studies and that programs targeting how people think about relationships did best, a warning that contact alone may not be enough.

Phone calls are a promising, low-cost approach. Kahlon et al. (2021) randomized adults, most of them older, to four weeks of empathy-focused calls from young lay volunteers or to no calls and found less loneliness, depression and anxiety in the call group. That trial was brief and ran during pandemic isolation, so whether such calls help residents of senior housing, who already have on-site activities, over a longer period remains unknown.

What the Pilot Showed

Our pilot randomized forty-two residents to twelve weeks of calls or a waitlist. Adjusting for baseline, the call group's loneliness was about five points lower on the twenty-item scale, a standardized difference near 0.56, but the confidence interval ran from a trivial to a large effect. Interviews with twelve residents and eight callers produced four themes: having someone to look forward to, being heard rather than helped, a two-way exchange and calls as a bridge to community activities. One resident found the calls intrusive. Procedures worked: callers completed most scheduled calls and the blind assessor rarely learned group assignments.

Aims and Hypotheses

Aim one is to estimate the effect of twelve weeks of calls on loneliness. Hypothesis one: residents assigned to calls will report lower loneliness at twelve weeks than waitlisted residents, adjusting for baseline. Aim two is to test whether effects last. Hypothesis two: the call group's advantage will remain at twenty-four weeks, twelve weeks after calls end. Aim three is to examine secondary outcomes. Hypothesis three: calls will reduce depressive symptoms and increase attendance at community activities. A qualitative strand will explore how and for whom the calls work.

Design

The study is a two-arm randomized waitlist trial with an embedded qualitative component. Eligible residents will be randomized in a one-to-one ratio, stratified by sex and building, using a computer-generated sequence held by the college's research office so staff cannot predict assignments. The call group receives calls for weeks one through twelve; the waitlist group receives the same calls for weeks thirteen through twenty-four. Twenty-four-week follow-up of the original call group tests persistence, while the waitlist comparison ends at week twelve.

Participants

The sampling frame is all residents of our Sun City community, about 320 people. Eligible residents are seventy or older, able to converse by phone with amplified handsets if needed, able to pass a brief consent comprehension check and whose answers on the brief three-question screen show at least moderate loneliness. Residents in hospice care or with cognitive impairment that prevents consent are excluded. Recruitment will add invitations through the woodworking and veterans groups, because men were underrepresented in the pilot.

Sample Size

Using G*Power with an expected standardized difference of 0.60, a conservative figure below the pilot estimate given its imprecision, a two-sided error rate of five percent and an eighty percent chance of detection, a covariance analysis with a baseline correlation of about .6 requires roughly thirty-six residents per group (Faul et al., 2007). Allowing for twenty percent attrition, we will enroll ninety residents.

Every number in this proposal, from ninety residents to one primary outcome, traces back to a decision made earlier in the course.

The Intervention

Callers are psychology students from the partner college who complete a three-hour training in empathetic listening, boundaries, responding to grief and referral procedures, an addition prompted by a caller's experience in the pilot. Each resident is matched with one caller for weekly twenty-minute calls at a regular time the resident chooses. Residents may change frequency or stop at any time, a change prompted by the resident who found calls intrusive. Callers log each call, and a coordinator reviews a sample of recorded calls, with consent, for fidelity.

Measures

The primary outcome is the twenty-item UCLA Loneliness Scale, version 3, at baseline, twelve and twenty-four weeks; Russell (1996) reported high internal consistency and good test-retest reliability across samples including older adults. Secondary outcomes are a brief depression screen validated in older adults and monthly activity attendance from sign-in records. Questionnaires are offered in large print and read aloud by a staff member blind to group, and administration mode is recorded.

Analysis Plan

The primary analysis follows intention to treat: all randomized residents are analyzed in their assigned groups. Twelve-week loneliness is compared between groups using analysis of covariance with baseline loneliness, sex and building as covariates. Effects are reported as adjusted mean differences and standardized effects with 95 percent confidence intervals. Missing data will be handled with multiple imputation, with a complete-case analysis as a sensitivity check. Persistence in the original call group is examined with a mixed model across three time points. Secondary outcomes are reported as exploratory.

Qualitative Strand

After twelve weeks, about fifteen call-group residents, chosen purposively for a range of changes in loneliness, and ten callers will be interviewed by a college research assistant. Thematic analysis with two coders will test whether pilot themes hold and explore new ones, and results will be integrated with quantitative findings.

Ethics

The college's review board will review the protocol. Consent will use large-print forms read aloud on request, a comprehension check and a reminder that declining will not affect services. Calls are low risk, but callers will receive a protocol for responding if a resident expresses hopelessness or describes abuse or neglect, with immediate referral to the community's social worker. Data will be stored on encrypted college servers with names replaced by codes. Callers will not access residents' records.

Reporting the Protocol

Chan et al. (2013) presented the SPIRIT 2013 statement, a thirty-three-item checklist of what a trial protocol should contain, including registration, roles and responsibilities, eligibility, interventions, outcomes, participant timeline, sample size, allocation, blinding, data management, monitoring and dissemination. This protocol follows that checklist, and the trial will be registered before enrollment begins so that hypotheses and outcomes are recorded in advance.

Limitations

The study is conducted in one fairly affluent community, which limits generalization. Residents cannot be blinded to receiving calls, and self-reported loneliness may be influenced by expectations. Contamination is possible in a community where residents talk with one another, though the waitlist design reduces resentment. Persistence is tested only in the original call group.

Timeline and Budget

Months one and two cover approval, registration and caller training; months three through eight cover enrollment and both twelve-week periods; months nine and ten cover analysis and reporting. Costs are modest: amplified phones, printing, a research assistant's time for interviews and transcription and small thank-you gifts for participants, estimated together at under five thousand dollars, with callers earning course credit.

Conclusion

A randomized waitlist trial with ninety residents, a validated primary outcome, blinded assessment, an intention-to-treat analysis and an embedded qualitative strand can tell our community, and others like it, whether weekly calls from college students meaningfully reduce loneliness and for whom.

References

Chan, A.-W., Tetzlaff, J. M., Altman, D. G., Laupacis, A., Gøtzsche, P. C., Krleža-Jerić, K., Hróbjartsson, A., Mann, H., Dickersin, K., Berlin, J. A., Doré, C. J., Parulekar, W. R., Summerskill, W. S. M., Groves, T., Schulz, K. F., Sox, H. C., Rockhold, F. W., Rennie, D., & Moher, D. (2013). SPIRIT 2013 statement: Defining standard protocol items for clinical trials. Annals of Internal Medicine, 158(3), 200-207. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-158-3-201302050-00583

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175-191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), Article e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Kahlon, M. K., Aksan, N., Aubrey, R., Clark, N., Cowley-Morillo, M., Jacobs, E. A., Mundhenk, R., Sebastian, K. R., & Tomlinson, S. (2021). Effect of layperson-delivered, empathy-focused program of telephone calls on loneliness, depression, and anxiety among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(6), 616-622. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.0113

Masi, C. M., Chen, H.-Y., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2011). A meta-analysis of interventions to reduce loneliness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(3), 219-266. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868310377394

Russell, D. W. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66(1), 20-40. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6601_2