Smartphone-based ecological momentary music intervention to reduce stress in Turkish immigrant women: protocol

Immigrant women frequently encounter ethnic discrimination (ED) and/or stressful events in their daily lives. To mitigate the risk of resulting health impairments, we developed an ecological momentary music intervention (EMMI-T) to reduce psychological and biological stress levels in the daily lives of Turkish immigrant women. The feasibility of the EMMI-T was confirmed in a pilot study (n=20). Here, we present the protocol of our proposed study to investigate the effectiveness of the EMMI-T.

Fifty Turkish immigrant women perceiving chronic ED will take part in the 35-day study. During all three study periods (ie, baseline, intervention and post-intervention), participants will use a smartphone-based app to provide discrimination-related and stress-related data four times a day. Additionally, they will report every discriminatory and/or stressful event. During the intervention period, subsequently after such event-based data entries, participants will be allocated to either an intervention event (music listening for 10 or 20 min) or a control event (no music listening). Irrespective of event type, the app will signal 20 min after the initial event-based data entry for additional data collection. Every data entry will be accompanied by the collection of a saliva sample for analysis of biological stress markers (alpha-amylase, cortisol).

This intraindividual randomised design will allow us to test immediate (ie, before vs after music listening) and intermediate (ie, baseline period vs postintervention period) effects of the EMMI-T on psychological and biological stress levels. To test our hypotheses, we will use multilevel modelling.

Positive ethical approval was given by the institutional review board of the University of Vienna (reference number 00575). The results of our study will be disseminated at conferences and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

NCT05829031.