BereavementNCT07228260
Help Texts Grief Intervention for Bereaved College Students
A study testing list of resources for grief and text-based intervention for grief in people with Bereavement, run by University of California, Los Angeles at 1 site in United States.
Trial 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… Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 years and older
- Conditions the study is for
- Bereavement
- What is being tested?
- list of resources for grief and text-based intervention for grief
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 126 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 30 Oct 2025to Jun 2027
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 years and older
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Enrolled UCLA student
- At least 18 years old
- Experienced death of a close person in the past 12 months
- Able to read English
Who cannot join
None listed.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
United States1 site, 1 recruiting
- Recruiting
Franz Hall
Los Angeles, California, 90095
Michelle Chang, M.A., 3232844695, griefstudy@ucla.edu
Theodore Robles, Ph.D.
About this study
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.
Read the detailed description
Grief and loss are common occurrences among students on college campuses but are inadequately addressed and associated with a number of negative outcomes. A mixed methods study of grieving students on a large campus found that 60% of those surveyed within a 3-year period at UCLA reported experiencing the loss of a loved one, but only 8% reported using campus resources to aid them during their grief, and only 38% sought resources off-campus (e.g., therapy, support groups, psychiatry). Numerous barriers to accessing grief support resources have been identified, including not knowing about them or perceiving them to be inadequate. Moreover, over one-third of participants interviewed in the study noted stigma associated with help-seeking. Despite a high prevalence of experiences of grief among students, resource utilization for supporting bereavement remains low.
Help Texts offers text message-based grief support, overcoming the barriers of access and stigma by providing up to a year of private, evidence-based grief support developed by clinical psychologists. Help Texts is an established company (specifically, a Public Benefit Corporation) and is currently in use. It was founded in 2018 and comprises a fully remote, 7-person team with over 100+ additional Expert Contributors providing expertise on different types of loss (e.g., the loss of a sibling, child, parent, partner; loss to cancer, dementia, suicide, COVID-19, etc); and the unique risks associated with being a caregiver, veteran, or member of the LGBTQIA2S+ or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Help Texts is delivering support in 57 countries, in all 50 states in the U.S., and in 27 languages.
Help Texts provides twice-weekly, one-way texts offering basic grief education by normalizing and validating the grief experience and then offering tips for coping within various themes around grief. Preliminary evidence suggests that bereaved users of HelpTexts have found it supportive; 95% of all users rated their satisfaction with HelpTexts as a 4 or 5 out of 5 and found the text messages helpful. The proposed study is a randomized control trial that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Help Texts to grieving students at UCLA in reducing grief severity and symptoms of depression, preventing prolonged grief and major depressive disorder, and in improving quality of life and occupational functioning (e.g., graduation, grades, student enrollment retention).
- Conditions
- Bereavement
- Being tested
- list of resources for grief, text-based intervention for grief
- Keywords
- bereavement, digital intervention, text-based intervention, college students
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
list of resources for griefBehavioural
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 griefBehavioural
Also called Help Texts
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.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Waitlist Control with Treatment as Usual | Other | 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. Receives: Behavioral: list of resources for grief; Behavioral: text-based intervention for grief |
| Treatment | Active comparator | 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. Receives: Behavioral: text-based intervention for grief |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Prolonged Grief Disorder-Revised (PG-13-R)
PG-13-R measures symptoms of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) mapping onto the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual's conceptualization of clinical grief. The measure assesses symptoms such as yearning for the deceased close person, avoiding reminders of their death, and feelings of loneliness in relation to the death. Each item is rated from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Overwhelmingly). Total scores range from 10 to 50, with higher scores representing more severe prolonged grief.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-3)
The PHQ-3 measures symptoms of depression over the last 2 weeks, including loss of interest in things, feeling down or hopeless, and feeling tired. Each item is rated from 0 (Not at all) to 3 (Nearly every day). Total scores range from 0 to 9, with higher scores representing more severe symptoms of depression.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Secondary outcomes (4)
Academic Functioning - GPA
Participants' current overall GPA will be measured. From highest to lowest, the GPA options will be the following: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+ or below, with A+ representing the highest possible current overall GPA.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Negative Impacts to Academic Performance
The investigators will assess the number of days that participants felt that emotional or mental difficulties hurt their academic performance. Participants can select the following options: None (0), 1-2 days (1), 3-5 days (2), 6 or more days (3), with scores ranging from 0 to 3. Higher scores indicate more days that participants felt their academic performance was hurt by their emotional or mental difficulties.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Class Enrollment Status
Participants will indicate whether or not they are currently registered for classes at UCLA. They will respond Yes (1) or No (0), with a higher score indicating that they are currently registered for classes.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Dropped Course
Another academic outcome measured will be whether or not participants dropped a course in the past quarter. This will be dichotomously scored as Yes (1) or No (0), with a higher score indicating endorsement of having dropped a course in the past quarter.
Measured: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted14 Nov 2025
- Study start30 Oct 2025
- Primary completionJun 2027 (estimated)
- Study completionJun 2027 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Publications (5)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for BereavementStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by University of California, Los AngelesThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Model description
- The treatment group will receive the Help Texts intervention at baseline, whereas the waitlist control group will receive treatment as usual (list of resources for grief) at baseline. At 6 months, the waitlist control group will receive the Help Texts intervention as well.
- Masking
- Single blind
- Who is masked
- Outcomes assessor
- Enrolment
- 126 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of Arizona, Help Texts
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Ted Robles, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07228260
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- IRB-25-0709
- Status last verified
- Oct 2025
- First submitted
- 23 Sep 2025
- Last updated
- 14 Nov 2025
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No: Our data will be securely managed by members of our research team and will not be shared with members outside of our research team. Findings from our research will be summarized and shared such that participants are not individually identifiable. Should other collaborators desire to access our data, they will need to be aligned with the goals of our research and added and approved to our IRB protocol.
Publications
Levesque DA, Lunardini MM, Adams SN, Payne EL, Neumann BG. Grief Coach: Feasibility and acceptability of a text message program for bereavement support among grievers in the United Kingdom. Death Stud. 2025;49(4):391-402. doi: 10.1080/07481187.2024.2334080. Epub 2024 Apr 4.
PubMed 38573792Chang M, Panda S, Tajrian M, Kim WI, Dunkel Schetter C, Robles TF. Bereavement, resource utilization, and collective grieving since the COVID pandemic: Mixed-methods study of university students and staff. 2024.
Varga MA, Lanier B, Biber D, Stewart B. Holistic Grief Effects, Mental Health, and Counseling Support in Bereaved College Students. College Student Affairs Journal. 2021;39(1):1-13. doi: 10.1353/csj.2021.0000.
Sirrine EH, Kliner O, Gollery TJ. College Student Experiences of Grief and Loss Amid the COVID-19 Global Pandemic. Omega (Westport). 2023 Aug;87(3):745-764. doi: 10.1177/00302228211027461. Epub 2021 Jun 23.
PubMed 34162233Jones S, Martini M. Sense of self, depression and adaption to grief, in emerging adults who suffered parental loss. Current Psychology. 2023;42(7):5212-25. doi: 10.1007/s12144-021-01843-z.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 14 Nov 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Help Texts Grief Intervention for Bereaved College Students
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07228260
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- IRB-25-0709
- Conditions
- Bereavement
- Keywords
- bereavement, digital intervention, text-based intervention, college students
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Enrolment
- 126 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- University of California, Los AngelesUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of Arizona, Help Texts
- Study start
- 30 Oct 2025 (actual)
- Primary completion
- Jun 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion
- Jun 2027 (estimated)
- First posted
- 14 Nov 2025 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
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.
Detailed description
Grief and loss are common occurrences among students on college campuses but are inadequately addressed and associated with a number of negative outcomes. A mixed methods study of grieving students on a large campus found that 60% of those surveyed within a 3-year period at UCLA reported experiencing the loss of a loved one, but only 8% reported using campus resources to aid them during their grief, and only 38% sought resources off-campus (e.g., therapy, support groups, psychiatry). Numerous barriers to accessing grief support resources have been identified, including not knowing about them or perceiving them to be inadequate. Moreover, over one-third of participants interviewed in the study noted stigma associated with help-seeking. Despite a high prevalence of experiences of grief among students, resource utilization for supporting bereavement remains low.
Help Texts offers text message-based grief support, overcoming the barriers of access and stigma by providing up to a year of private, evidence-based grief support developed by clinical psychologists. Help Texts is an established company (specifically, a Public Benefit Corporation) and is currently in use. It was founded in 2018 and comprises a fully remote, 7-person team with over 100+ additional Expert Contributors providing expertise on different types of loss (e.g., the loss of a sibling, child, parent, partner; loss to cancer, dementia, suicide, COVID-19, etc); and the unique risks associated with being a caregiver, veteran, or member of the LGBTQIA2S+ or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Help Texts is delivering support in 57 countries, in all 50 states in the U.S., and in 27 languages.
Help Texts provides twice-weekly, one-way texts offering basic grief education by normalizing and validating the grief experience and then offering tips for coping within various themes around grief. Preliminary evidence suggests that bereaved users of HelpTexts have found it supportive; 95% of all users rated their satisfaction with HelpTexts as a 4 or 5 out of 5 and found the text messages helpful. The proposed study is a randomized control trial that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Help Texts to grieving students at UCLA in reducing grief severity and symptoms of depression, preventing prolonged grief and major depressive disorder, and in improving quality of life and occupational functioning (e.g., graduation, grades, student enrollment retention).
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind (outcomes assessor)
- Number of arms
- 2
- Model description
- The treatment group will receive the Help Texts intervention at baseline, whereas the waitlist control group will receive treatment as usual (list of resources for grief) at baseline. At 6 months, the waitlist control group will receive the Help Texts intervention as well.
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Waitlist Control with Treatment as Usual | Other | Behavioral: list of resources for grief, Behavioral: text-based intervention for griefAt 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. |
| Treatment | Active comparator | Behavioral: text-based intervention for griefAt 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. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- Enrolled UCLA student
- At least 18 years old
- Experienced death of a close person in the past 12 months
- Able to read English
Key exclusion criteria (0 listed)
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| list of resources for griefParticipants will receive treatment as usual, consisting of a list of resources for coping with grief both on-campus and off-campus | Behavioural | Waitlist Control with Treatment as Usual |
| text-based intervention for griefAlso: Help TextsHelp 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. | Behavioural | Treatment, Waitlist Control with Treatment as Usual |
Primary outcome
Prolonged Grief Disorder-Revised (PG-13-R)
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
PG-13-R measures symptoms of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) mapping onto the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual's conceptualization of clinical grief. The measure assesses symptoms such as yearning for the deceased close person, avoiding reminders of their death, and feelings of loneliness in relation to the death. Each item is rated from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Overwhelmingly). Total scores range from 10 to 50, with higher scores representing more severe prolonged grief.
Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-3)
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
The PHQ-3 measures symptoms of depression over the last 2 weeks, including loss of interest in things, feeling down or hopeless, and feeling tired. Each item is rated from 0 (Not at all) to 3 (Nearly every day). Total scores range from 0 to 9, with higher scores representing more severe symptoms of depression.
4 secondary outcomes
Academic Functioning - GPA
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Negative Impacts to Academic Performance
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Class Enrollment Status
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Academic Functioning - Dropped Course
Time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 14 Nov 2025.
- Results publication: PubMed 38573792Levesque DA, Lunardini MM, Adams SN, Payne EL, Neumann BG. Grief Coach: Feasibility and acceptability of a text message program for bereavement support among grievers in the United Kingdom. Death Stud. 2025;49(4):391-402. doi: 10.1080/07481187.2024.2334080. Epub 2024 Apr 4.
- Results publicationChang M, Panda S, Tajrian M, Kim WI, Dunkel Schetter C, Robles TF. Bereavement, resource utilization, and collective grieving since the COVID pandemic: Mixed-methods study of university students and staff. 2024.
- Results publicationVarga MA, Lanier B, Biber D, Stewart B. Holistic Grief Effects, Mental Health, and Counseling Support in Bereaved College Students. College Student Affairs Journal. 2021;39(1):1-13. doi: 10.1353/csj.2021.0000.
- Results publication: PubMed 34162233Sirrine EH, Kliner O, Gollery TJ. College Student Experiences of Grief and Loss Amid the COVID-19 Global Pandemic. Omega (Westport). 2023 Aug;87(3):745-764. doi: 10.1177/00302228211027461. Epub 2021 Jun 23.
- Results publicationJones S, Martini M. Sense of self, depression and adaption to grief, in emerging adults who suffered parental loss. Current Psychology. 2023;42(7):5212-25. doi: 10.1007/s12144-021-01843-z.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No. Our data will be securely managed by members of our research team and will not be shared with members outside of our research team. Findings from our research will be summarized and shared such that participants are not individually identifiable. Should other collaborators desire to access our data, they will need to be aligned with the goals of our research and added and approved to our IRB protocol.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing list of resources for grief and text-based intervention for grief in people with Bereavement, run by University of California, Los Angeles at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 0 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 14 Nov 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Contact Michelle Chang, M.A., C.Phil ((323) 284-4695, changmichelle@g.ucla.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Prolonged Grief Disorder-Revised (PG-13-R) (time frame: 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months following enrollment). The study lists 2 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT07228260, which also lists 5 linked publications.
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 14 Nov 2025.