“Resiliency Engagement and Care in Health (REaCH); a Telephone Befriending Intervention for Up Skilled Rural Youth in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic: Study Protocol for a Multi-centre Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial”.

Abstract BackgroundThe lockdown associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to impact the mental health of people, especially those who are from economically backward and vulnerable sections of society. Mental health can be affected from various reasons including fear of disease transmission, from response measures like social distancing and lockdown, fear of being in quarantine, loneliness, depression due to isolation, fear of losing work and livelihood and avoiding health care due to fear of being infected. Telephonic befriending intervention by non-specialists will be used to provide social and emotional support to the youth from the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDUGKY), an initiative of Government of India. This study aims to promote mental wellbeing and reduce depressive symptoms by assisting participants to mobilize social support from family, friends and significant others by using the telephonic befriending intervention. MethodsIn this article, we report the design and protocol of a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial. In total, 1440 participants aged 18-35 years, who have recently passed out of the DDU-GKY initiative will be recruited in the study, from 12 project implementing agencies across 6 geographical zones of India. Participants from 6 of these agencies will be assigned into the telephonic befriending intervention arm and the other 6 agency participants will be assigned to the general enquiry phone call arm (control). The primary outcomes of this study are mental wellbeing, depressive symptoms and perceived social support. Baseline assessments and follow-up assessments will be carried out 1 month following the intervention using WHO-5, PHQ and MSPSS-12 questionnaires. The befriending intervention will be provided by DDU-GKY staff who will be trained by a virtual training program. DiscussionThe results of this trial will help assess whether participants who are offered emotional, social and practical support through befriending, will experience lesser symptoms of depression and better mental health compared to participants who do not receive this intervention. And whether participants who receive the intervention will perceive better social support. Trial registrationThis intervention trial This intervention trial is registered under Clinical Trial Registry India (ICMR-NIMS) on 27th July 2020; registration number: CTRICTRI/2020/07/026834