Open AccessThriving in adversity: Do brief milieu interventions work for young adults in the developing world? A pragmatic randomized controlled trial
Author(s) -
David Pearson,
Fiona Kennedy,
Suchetha Bhat,
Vishal Talreja,
Katherine NewmanTaylor
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social behavior and personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.362
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1179-6391
pISSN - 0301-2212
DOI - 10.2224/sbp.10494
Subject(s) - psychology , disadvantaged , thriving , psychosocial , randomized controlled trial , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , medicine , surgery , political science , law
Adolescence may be a window of opportunity to attenuate the effects of early social adversity, which impedes cognitive, emotional, and social development, and increases risk of psychopathology into adulthood. We ran a pragmatic randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of a brief intervention designed to facilitate life skills for psychosocial competence. Socially disadvantaged young people living in South India who had experienced early adversity ( N = 645; age range = 17–22 years) participated in the intervention or were assigned to a wait-list control group. The intervention led to large differences in life skills between the two groups. This brief, scalable intervention can be made available to address the impact of early social adversity on young people's development.