The Selah Study Protocol of Three Interventions to Manage Stress among Clergy: A Preference-based Randomized Waitlist-control Trial

Abstract Introduction: Like many helping professionals in emotional labor occupations, clergy experience high rates of mental and physical comorbidities. Regular stress management practices may reduce stress-related symptoms and morbidity, but more research is needed into what practices can be reliably included in busy lifestyles, and practiced at a high enough level to meaningfully reduce stress symptoms. Methods and analysis: The overall design is a preference-based randomized waitlist-control trial. United Methodist clergy in North Carolina will be eligible to participate. The intervention and waitlist-control groups will be recruited by email. The interventions offered are specifically targeted to clergy preference and include: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Daily Examen and stress inoculation training. Surveys will be conducted at 0, 12 and 24 weeks with heart rate data collected at 0 and 12 weeks. The primary outcomes for this study are self-reported symptoms of stress and heart rate at week 12 for each intervention compared to waitlist control; the secondary outcome is symptoms of anxiety comparing each intervention vs waitlist control. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval was obtained from the Duke University Campus IRB (2019-0238). Results will be made available to researchers, funders, and members of the clergy community.ClinicalTrials.gov trial registration number: NCT04625777.