"Three Good Things" digital intervention among health care workers: a randomized controlled trial
The closest study to journaling by text message. Health care workers who received three text prompts a week asking for three good things reported improved positive affect at one month that was still significantly improved at three months - though depression, gratitude and life satisfaction showed the same trend without reaching significance.
Someone ran the text-message version of a gratitude journal in a randomised trial, and this is what happened.
Gold and colleagues invited an entire academic medicine department and randomised 223 participants to either an immediate intervention or a delayed-intervention control. The intervention was three text messages per week asking for three good things that happened that day.
Positive affect improved slightly at one month, then declined a little but remained significantly improved at three months. Depression, gratitude and life satisfaction moved in the same direction but did not reach statistical significance between groups.
Read the size honestly. The authors’ own conclusion is that adherence to the intervention created small positive improvements immediately afterwards that were not sustained, and that future work should test different duration or intensity.
Why it is the most relevant study in this library to a texted journal. Almost every other trial here used paper, a web form, or an app. This one used the channel people already read. Retention through the end of the study was high, which is the outcome most journaling interventions fail on - and it is a result about delivery, not about gratitude.
Only positive affect reached statistical significance; the other three outcomes did not differ significantly between groups. The improvements were small and the authors describe them as not sustained. Participants were 87% female health care workers at one academic department, and just under half of those eligible enrolled, so self-selection is likely.
Articles citing this study
Summarized by Tiago Martins · Last updated: · How we write these
