Randomized controlled trial of the Resilience and Coping Intervention (RCI) with undergraduate university students
J Brian Houston1, Jennifer First1, Matthew L Spialek2
1a Disaster and Community Crisis Center, Department of Communication, University of Missouri , Columbia , Missouri , USA.
Objective:
The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the Resilience and Coping Intervention (RCI) with college students.
Participants:
College students (aged 18-23) from a large Midwest US university who volunteered for a randomized controlled trial during the 2015 spring semester.
Methods:
College students were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 64) or a control (n = 65) group. Intervention participants received three 45-minute RCI sessions over subsequent weeks. All participants completed pre- and post-intervention assessments at the beginning of Week 1 and end of Week 3. Student resilience, coping, hope, stress, depression, and anxiety were assessed.
Results:
RCI participants reported significantly more hope and less stress and depression from Week 1 to Week 3 compared with control participants. Results for resilience also approached statistical significance. Effect sizes were small to moderate.
Conclusions:
This study found preliminary evidence that RCI is an effective resilience intervention for use with college students.
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