An interventional study of Frendie PRO mobile application in Loneliness, Social Isolation and Social Support, sponsored by University of Eastern Finland. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in Finland. Open to participants aged 16 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-05-02.
Sponsored by University of Eastern Finland · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
The goal of this cluster randomized controlled trial is to learn if using Frendie PRO mobile application at workplaces improves social well-being in employees. The main questions it aims to answer are:
Does using Frendie PRO mobile application at work for 6 months reduce loneliness in employees? Does using Fendie PRO mobile application at work for 6 months reduce social isolation in employees?
Researchers will compare employees from workplaces that use the Frendie PRO mobile application to employees from workplaces that do not use the mobile application to see if there are differences in their levels of social well-being (loneliness, social isolation, perceived social support, depressive symptoms).
Participants will be given access to the Frendie PRO mobile application and encouraged to use it by employers.
Participants will be recruited from workplaces that use the Frendie PRO mobile application. After collecting baseline data, each workplace will be randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. The unit of randomization is a workplace (or a team or department in bigger organizations).
The intervention group will be encouraged to download and start using the Frendie PRO mobile application. The control group will be informed of the date when they will have access to it (six months after the baseline).
Both groups are asked to participate in two follow-ups - a 3-month follow-up and a 6-month follow-up.
8,057 studies on the registry are indexed under Depression; 1,641 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 1,012 is above the median of 84 across 6,720 interventional studies indexed under Depression.
Browse Depression studies →University of Eastern Finland is the lead sponsor of 51 studies on the registry; 9 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
Behavioral: Frendie PRO mobile application
The group will have access to the mobile application after the six-month follow-up period.
Frendie PRO mobile application offers employees an environment to manage their social relationships, organize leisure activities, and discuss personal or work-related matters.
Loneliness
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale
Time frame: Will be measured three times: baseline, 3-month follow-up and 6-month follow-up
Social Isolation
The Social Isolation scale was modified from an index used by Christiansen et al. (2021). Christiansen and colleagues, in turn, created it inspired by the detailed Social Network Index created by Berkman and Syme (1979). Communication frequency with the following groups is measured: * family members who live elsewhere * friends * colleagues or fellow students at the workplace/school and outside of the workplace/school * neighbors and local community * people from social clubs, hobby groups, and religious organisations at and outside the meetings.
Time frame: Will be measured three times: baseline, 3-month follow-up and 6-month follow-up
Social support
Oslo Social Support Scale
Time frame: Will be measured three times: baseline, 3-month follow-up and 6-month follow-up
Depressive symptoms
Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ9)
Time frame: Will be measured three times: baseline, 3-month follow-up and 6-month follow-up
Workplace loneliness
Specific scale regarding loneliness experienced at workplaces. Includes 5 items that are modified from the UCLA loneliness scale. It was validated in Finnish adult population. Please see Kemppinen and Tanskanen (2023) for full description: Kemppinen, S., Tanskanen, J., 2023. Suomenkielisen työyksinäisyysmittarin validointi etä- ja hybridityöläisillä (Eng title: Validation of Finnish loneliness at work scale with remote and hybrid worker sample). Psykologia 58, 198-219.
Time frame: Will be measured three times: baseline, 3-month follow-up and 6-month follow-up
Activity and behavior on the application
Each individual user's activity on the mobile application will be measured. The data will be used for additional analyses.
Time frame: 6 months
Plan to share: Yes — After 10 years, anonymized data will be offered to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. If the data will not be accepted there, it will be destroyed.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Icf, Csr
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Apr 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of Eastern Finland