CClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT05796869Updated Dec 26, 2023

The Effect of Laughter Therapy On The Food Craving

An interventional study of Assigned Interventions in PMS, LAUGHTER and Food Habits, sponsored by Sinop University. Recruiting at 1 site in Turkey. Open to female participants aged 18 Years to 35 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2023-12-26.

Sponsored by Sinop University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care

From the registry’s dates

  • Primary completion was expected by Jan 2024, 2 years 8 months ago, but the record still lists the study as recruiting.
  • Started Nov 2023; still recruiting 2 years 10 months later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
90
Allocation
Non-randomized
Ages
18 Years to 35 Years
Sex
Female
01

Study summary

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is characterized by physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms in the luteal phase that significantly disrupt women's daily lives, including work and personal activities, and resolve spontaneously within a few days of the onset of menstruation. The premenstrual syndrome causes emotional eating, excessive consumption of certain foods, and increased appetite. These unhealthy eating patterns in eating behavior affect health negatively. Women with PMS have an increased appetite and food cravings. It has been stated that the increase in appetite and food cravings are reduced by laughter therapy. Thus, the laughter therapy method, which has no side effects in PMS and negative eating behaviors, can be used and recommended or applied by health professionals.

Read the detailed description

The universe of the research will be all young women with PMS who study at the designated Faculty of Health Sciences in the Spring semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the study will be all young women studying at the Faculty of Health Sciences, meeting the inclusion criteria and agreeing to participate in the study. All young women with a Premenstrual Syndrome Scale total score of 110 and above will be included in the study. Since all women who have a Premenstrual Syndrome Diagnostic Scale of 110 and above, volunteer to participate in the study, and meet the inclusion criteria will be included in the study, no additional sample selection will be made. The application and control group will be determined on random.org among the group that constitutes the sample of the study. Laughter therapy sessions will be applied online for 25-30 minutes once a week for 2 months by the researcher who has the Laughter therapy certificate to the application group. At the end of two months, the Personal Information Form, Premenstrual Syndrome Scale, and the Food Craving Scale will be administered again to both the application group and the control group.

02

Conditions studied

  • PMS
  • LAUGHTER
  • Food Habits

Keywords

  • PMS
  • Laughter Therapy
  • Young women
  • Food Craving
03

In context

Lead sponsor

Sinop University is the lead sponsor of 30 studies on the registry; 11 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 35 Years
Sexes eligible
Female
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

  • Being a nursing student,
  • Being a female student,
  • Volunteering to participate in the study.
  • Having a PMS score of 43 and above

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Not to study as a nursing student
  • Being a male student
  • Not to volunteer to participate in the study
  • Participants who have a PMS score of 42 and below
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Supportive care
Allocation
Non-randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Double (Participant, Investigator)
Enrollment
90 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • No intervention
    Control Group

    At the beginning of the study, data collection tools Personal Information Form, Premenstrual Syndrome Scale and Food Craving Scale will be applied to the control group. No intervention will be made in the control group. Measurement tools will be applied for the post-test.

  • Experimental
    Experimental Group

    All young women with a Premenstrual Syndrome Scale total score of 110 and above will be included in the study. Since all women who have a Premenstrual Syndrome Diagnostic Scale of 110 and above, volunteer to participate in the study and meet the inclusion criteria will be included in the study, no additional sample selection will be made. The application and control group will be determined on random.org among the group that constitutes the sample of the study. Laughter therapy sessions will be administered face to face to the application group once a week for 2 months by a researcher with a laughter therapy certificate. At the end of two months, the Personal Information Form, Premenstrual Syndrome Scale, and the Food Craving Scale will be administered again to both the application group and the control group.

    Behavioral: Assigned Interventions

Interventions

  • BehavioralAssigned Interventions

    The laughter therapy session will be administered to the application group face to face for 25-30 minutes once a week for 2 months by a researcher with a laughter therapy certificate. In the laughter therapy session, introducing the practitioner and introducing the therapy, breathing exercises for a healthy life, maintaining the rhythm with music, turning laughter that starts like a child's play into reality and meditation practices will be carried out.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Premenstrual Syndrom Scale

    It is a scale developed by Gençdoğan in 2006, measuring the severity of premenstrual symptoms, with a five-point Likert type, containing 44 items and consisting of nine subscales: Depressive Affectiveness, Anxiety, Fatigue, Nervousness, Depressive Thoughts, Pain, Appetite Changes, Sleep Changes and Bloating. When scoring on the scale, "Always" is scored as 5 points, "Often" as 4 points, "Sometimes" as 3 points, "Very little" as 2 points and "Never" as 1 point, and it is evaluated over the total score. The application of the scale is done by retrospectively evaluating the person's "being in the week before menstrual bleeding" situation. The lowest score from the scale is 44 and the highest score is 220. The higher the score, the more severe PMS symptoms are considered. If the person exceeds 50% (110) of the total scale score (220) on the PMS scale, PMS is considered to be present. In the reliability study of the scale, Cronbach's Alpha value was found to be 0.75.

    Time frame: One day

Secondary outcomes

  1. Food Craving:

    The scale was developed by Cepeda-Benito et al. (2000) Akkurt et al. (2019) Turkish validity and reliability were performed. The scale consists of 39 items and is evaluated in a 6-point Likert type. The scale has 9 sub-dimensions. Sub-dimensions and items in sub-dimensions are as follows. "Having Intentions and Plans to Consume Food", "Anticipation of Positive Reinforcement Feelings As a Result of Eating", "Lack of Eating Control Over Eating", "Thoughts or Preoccupation with Food Cravings or Eating", "Craving as a Physiological State", "Emotions That May Be Experienced Before or During Meal", "Cues That May Trigger Food Craving", "Guilt From Cravings and/or for Giving Into Them". The score of each sub-dimension and scale is obtained by dividing the total item scores by the number of items. The scores obtained in this way express the high desire to eat in the scale and in the sub-dimensions.

    Time frame: One day

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Dec 26, 2023, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05796869
Lead sponsor
Sinop University
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Apr 4, 2023
Start date
Nov 20, 2023
Primary completion
Jan 20, 2024 (estimated)
Completion
Jan 30, 2024 (estimated)
Last update
Dec 26, 2023

Study contacts

Meryem Erdoğan, PhD
Contact
meryemerdogan84@gmail.com
+905364959633
Adeviye Aydın, PhD
Contact
adeviye86@gmail.com
+905413645524
Meryem Erdoğan, PhD
principal investigator · Sinop University

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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