Factors Anticipating Adolescents’ Adherence and Dropout in an Online ACT Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study examined factors anticipating adolescents’ (N = 232) adherence and dropout in an online acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) intervention targeted at promoting well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, results showed that adolescents with high academic achievement and educational expectations were more likely to participate in the induction meeting and start the program. Second, adolescents in the human-supported model fulfilled the adherence criteria more often than adolescents supported by virtual coach only. Finally, though male participants were less likely to participate in the study, participants who started the online program were likely to adhere to it regardless of gender.

Keywords:

• Acceptance and commitment therapy
• adherence
• adolescents
• antecedents
• dropout
• human-supported model
• virtual coach model
• web-based intervention

Ethics approval

This study was conducted in compliance with APA ethical standards. The procedures were in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki on research with human subjects. The research plan of the project was approved by the Human Sciences Ethics Committee of the University of Jyväskylä.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Data sharing and declaration

The data sets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethics restrictions but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of an intervention study called the Youth Compass Plus, which was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov. The study was funded by a grant from the Academy of Finland (No. 324638). Manuscript preparation was also supported by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Academy of Finland (Nos. 352648 and 352657).